As elections progress, campaign pitch changes ‘khatakhat’ across phases
Umesh Raghuvanshi
LUCKNOW : With each passing phase of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, political rhetoric is getting shriller.
As both Bharatiya Janata Party and INDIA Bloc literally tear into each other during rallies and election meetings and trade charges, political discourse has evolved around their utterances. Remarks and retorts, ranging from ‘Katchatheevu’ island (now in Sri Lanka), to Kyoto (Japan) and from “shehzada” (prince) to “shahenshah” (emperor) are flying in the air.
The highlight is the main verbal duel between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the INDIA bloc leaders- Congress’ Rahul Gandhi and Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav- who have consistently made attacks and counter attacks, giving a new dimension to political rhetoric in the past nearly 10 weeks or so (poll notification was issued on March 16).
It all began with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at his first election rally at Meerut on March 31, targeting the Congress for giving away Katchatheevu island to Sri Lanka in 1974. “Another anti-India conduct of the Congress has been unveiled today. The island of Katchatheevu, which lies between India and Sri Lanka and is extremely important from the perspective of national security, was given away by Congress after independence. India is still paying for the misdoings of the Congress government,” he said.
While the INDIA bloc has consistently used the BJP’s ‘400 paar’ (400 plus) slogan to target the BJP for alleged ‘attempts’ to change the Constitution of India, the Prime Minister has reminded the Congress of the
Emergency days when the Constitution was subverted. Modi on Wednesday targeted the Congress again, saying the party did not value its own constitution and the then Congress president Sitaram Kesri was locked in a bathroom to pave way for Sonia Gandhi to take over as party president.
The PM, who has accused the Congress of making attempts to take away the women’s “mangal sutra” or the “buffaloes” to give the same to the Muslims also brought the ‘taunti” (tap) into poll discourse in Shravasti on Wednesday. He said, “They (Congress and SP) leaders will take away your ‘taunti’ too.” This was an obvious reference to the BJP’s allegations against Akhilesh while he vacated his official bungalow. Modi has also mocked Rahul Gandhi for his ‘khatakhat’ remarks for swift transfer of funds to the people and this has been aptly countered by Rahul and Akhilesh with ‘khatakhat’, fatafat’ and ‘gatagat’ remarks with Rahul Gandhi saying he could get the PM to say anything.
Observing that Modi had stated that “we (Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav) will go abroad after Lok Sabha elections”, Akhilesh Yadav at a rally with Rahul Gandhi at Rae Bareli on May 17, said, “The people know that some of the people close to the BJP have been already sent abroad. They ran away “khata-khat” (swiftly). Now the people are saying we will defeat the BJP “fatafat” (swiftly). They used to say “na khayenge, na khane denge”(we will not allow corruption) but “woh sab dakar gaye, gatagat, gatagat” (they are indulging in big corruption).”
Earlier, at an election rally in Saharanpur on April 6, which went to polls in the first phase on April 19, the PM launched frontal attacks on the INDIA bloc leaders, calling Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav as “Do ladkon ki flop film” released again. In Shahjahanpur on April 25, he called the two leaders “Do shehzade” (two princes) who had come together for politics of appeasement.
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi soon countered this by launching frontal attacks on the Prime Minister, calling him “shehanshah” (emperor) for always being in dirt-free clothes and defending her brother Rahul Gandhi against the PM’s ‘shehzada’ jibe. She said her brother, whom he (PM) called ‘shehzada’, walked 4000 km from Kanyakumari to Kashmir to listen to the people’s problems.
Modi also targeted Rahul Gandhi for the latter’s observations in Mumbai on March 17 that the INDIA Bloc was not fighting one individual - Narendra Modi - but the ‘shakti’ (power) which was intimidating Opposition leaders. Modi soon hit back. At a rally in Congressruled Telangana the next day, the PM called Rahul Gandhi’s speech an insult to women.
The political discourse centred around eating habits too as a video of RJD leader and former Bihar chief minister Tejaswi Yadav eating fish during Navratri came into focus. As the RJD leaders defended him saying that the video was recorded before ‘navratri’, the BJP continued to target him for eating fish during ‘navratri’. The Trinamool Congress, however, used the campaign against Tejaswi to turn the tables on the BJP, observing that the BJP wanted to control every aspect of the people’s life, attempting to decide what the people should eat.
In an interview to a news channel, the PM targeted his opponents for tarnishing his image among the Muslims and recounted that he (PM) was brought up around Muslim families and food used to come to his house from them on Eid.