BJP slams Rahul over 'abuses' against PM files police complaint Cong politics at lowest level Shah

Patna, Aug 28 (PTI) Alleging that abuses were hurled at Prime Minister Narendra Modi during Rahul Gandhi's ‘Voter Adhikar Yatra’ in Bihar, the BJP on Thursday asserted the Congress-led INDIA bloc will be "punished" by the people in the upcoming assembly polls, and Union Home Minister Amit Shah termed the incident as a "stain" on the country's democracy.
    Shah, BJP national president J P Nadda and party spokesperson Sambit Patra flayed the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, a day after a purported video showed an unidentified person using a Hindi expletive against Modi from a dais raised during the yatra in Darbhanga town, from where Gandhi, Congress general secretary Priyanka Vadra and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav had left for Muzaffarpur on motorcycles.
    PTI could not independently verify the authenticity of the video.
    A delegation of the Bihar BJP lodged a complaint at the Kotwali police station in Patna on Thursday in connection with the incident.
    Reacting to the episode of the video clip, Shah said under Rahul Gandhi's leadership, Congress politics has reached its lowest level, and the party cannot tolerate how a poor mother's son has been sitting in the prime minister's chair for the past 11 years.
    "The use of abusive language filled with expletives against the Honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his late mother from the Congress and RJD platform in Darbhanga, Bihar, is not only condemnable but also a stain on our democracy," he wrote on X in Hindi.
    Nadda came out with a video message, calling Gandhi and Tejashwi Yadav "two spoilt princes, who have brought disrepute to Bihar and its culture, and must apologise to the nation".
    Patra, also a BJP MP, blamed Rahul Gandhi for the alleged hurling of abuses against Modi and said the Congress, which often associates itself with the freedom struggle, has become a “gali wali party” because the Gandhi family is not able to return to power.
    "Congress ki galiyon ki dukan seal hogi, aur iski shuruat Bihar se hogi (Congress' shop of abuse will be sealed, and it will start from Bihar)," said Patra.
    “Today the kind of language that has been used for Modi ji and his mother, who is no more, in Darbhanga... If anyone is its creator, it’s Rahul Gandhi, none other. Listen to the speeches that Rahul Gandhi gave recently and analyse them,” he said.
    Meanwhile, protest demonstrations were staged in Darbhanga as well as Patna, even as the state women's commission shot off a letter to the administration, seeking "suo motu" action against the culprits.
    Effigies of Gandhi and Yadav were burnt by BJP workers in Darbhanga, who joined a procession organised by two-term local MP Gopaljee Thakur.
    A Congress leader in Darbhanga, who admitted that the viral video was of a podium that he had got erected on the outskirts of the north Bihar town, offered an apology, but maintained that the “expletives had been hurled” in his absence.
    "The video appears to have been shot after I left the spot, following Rahul Gandhi, who passed through. I have not yet watched the clip. Still, I offer my apologies if anything of the sort has happened," said Mohd Naushad, who is a worker of the Youth Congress and is said to be eyeing the party ticket from Jale assembly seat.
    Thakur also submitted a memorandum to District Magistrate Kaushal Kumar, seeking the arrest of Naushad and his associates.
    "It appears that some attention-seeking youth went overboard, hoping to grab eyeballs... I am also told that the video on social media has been doctored with the help of AI. Still, keeping in mind that the matter concerns the country's PM, I tender my apologies," added Naushad.


    In Patna, Deputy Chief Minister and former state BJP president Samrat Choudhary said "The law must take its own course against those who had abused the PM's late mother. But one thing is clear, the INDIA bloc will not be forgiven by the people of Bihar... it will be punished in the polls."
    Reacting to the development, state Congress spokesman Asit Nath Tiwari said it is the BJP, “which is known for ‘gali-galauj’ (abusive language)”.
    “There is so much resentment against the ruling NDA that people have begun venting spleen from podiums. Still, we stop the people from doing so and explain to them that such behaviour is the BJP’s wont, not that of the Congress," he said.
    A senior police officer, who requested anonymity, later told PTI that the “complaint lodged at Kotwali is being looked into. The site of the incident does not fall in our jurisdiction. We are examining if a zero FIR could be lodged".
    In Motihari, where the ‘Voter Adikar Yatra’ reached late Thursday, RJD MP Sanjay Yadav told reporters, "The government in Bihar is controlled by the BJP. So they can do as they please. But, the fight against SIR cannot be crushed with threats of FIR. They had tried this trick with our leader Tejashwi Yadav a few days ago."
    The allusion was to FIRs lodged in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra over a social media post by Yadav ahead of the PM's tour of Gayaji on August 22. PTI NAC KR DV CORR MNB PYK RBT

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)