With polls around the corner, war of words hits a new low

Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, February 5

With elections around the corner, war of words has begun to hot up with the new wave of caustic exchanges triggered by Congress’s social media head Divya Spandana Ramya.

Ramya posted a twitter swipe on Monday after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, referring to farmers in poll-bound Karnataka, said “TOP (Tomato, Onion, Potato) was his top priority. “Is this what happens when you’re on POT?” the former Karnataka MP shot back provoking reactions in the saffron camp which has been hitting back ever since.

Among first responders was BJP spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao who taunted Ramya and Congress President Rahul Gandhi saying, “Most people of the country and our party members won’t even know what you are referring to (including PM himself) but your leader will connect with it instantly. While you have insulted people of India with your atrocious comment, your leader will be proud of you!!”

BJP’s social media in-charge Amit Malviya went to the extent of asking Gandhi if he would sack his colleague for her jibe on the PM.

“Will Rahul Gandhi maintain silence on Divya Spandana’s comment while he sacked Mani Shankar Aiyar just because his jibe came close to the Gujarat election and Karnataka is still some months away? Or sacrificing his close aide, responsible for his rise as a leader, takes some courage?” asked Malviya mirroring an all-too familiar pattern of insults in poll-time politics.

The most recent language war was fought ahead of the Gujarat elections when Congress’s Mani Shankar Aiyar faced suspension from the party for saying, “PM is a lowly person.” 

The PM avenged these remarks generously while on election trail and linked these to his humble background. The Congress lost the Gujarat elections narrowly with the jury still out on whether Aiyar’s remark helped the BJP.

Election-time invectives have, in fact, loosely been linked to parties winning and losing at the hustings. In the Bihar elections of 2015, which the BJP lost comprehensively, one of the attributed causes was PM Modi’s move of questioning then Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s “DNA”. 

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The same election saw the PM mention that RJD chief Lalu Yadav had an affinity with the “shaitan”. Lalu hit back with equal force saying the PM was a “brahm pishaach” (a super demon).

Then there was a truly insulting remark former BJP Uttar Pradesh chief Dayashankar Singh hurled at BSP supremo Mayawati in mid 2016. Singh was expelled from the party for his choice of words.

Not to forget former Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s anti-Modi reference “Maut ka saudaagar” during the 2007 Gujarat election campaign–a remark many believed boomeranged for the Congress in the state. 

That’s not to say Modi did not have his retorts. He provoked the Congress to move the Election Commission when he called party’s poll symbol (palm) a “khooni panja” while canvassing in Chhattisgarh in the 2013 elections.

That said, Rahul is believed to have recently told his Congress colleagues to keep decency in political language.