Kharge’s “Modi ka baap” remark: BJP protests from Patna to Hyderabad demand an apology

The BJP took to the streets across the country on 26 October over a remark by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s father, demanding that he apologise and withdraw it.

The row began in Patna on 25 October, at a Congress meeting marking the 139th birth anniversary of Bihar’s first Chief Minister, Shri Krishna Singh. Kharge was saying that the Congress would send to jail those responsible for irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision of the electoral rolls when someone in the audience shouted that Modi was not going anywhere. “Modi ka baap bhi jayega,” Kharge shot back from the dais, and said it again.

From Patna to Hyderabad

In Patna, the state BJP president Sanjay Saraogi led a “Jan Akrosh March” of about 1.5 km from the party office to Dak Bungalow Chauraha, where an effigy of Kharge was burnt. In Delhi, workers led by the state president Harsh Malhotra set out for Kharge’s residence on Rajaji Marg and were stopped by the police at Sena Bhawan Circle. In Bengaluru, leaders who gathered at Freedom Park, among them the senior leader R. Ashoka, were detained. There was a march with an effigy in Kolkata and a burning of posters in Jammu. In Hyderabad, BJP leaders and workers gathered at MJ Market to demand an apology.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah said Kharge had torn apart every norm of decorum with an indecent remark about Modi’s father.

Kharge has not spoken on the matter and the Congress has issued no statement. Congress MP Imran Masood defended the retort as justified and in the same language BJP leaders had used earlier. The RJD’s Bhai Virendra called it a slip of the tongue that needed no apology.