It was six weeks ago on February 23 when Congress leaders raised the rather objectionable slogan “Modi Teri Kabr Khudegi” while on a protest at the Delhi airport tarmac over the arrest of party spokesperson Pawan Khera. The slogan has since then come to haunt the Congress as the top leadership of the Bharatiya Janata Party has made it a rallying issue.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself, home minister Amit Shah, and BJP president JP Nadda — the party’s top leaders have cited this comment over half a dozen times in the past six weeks to suggest the Congress is now wishing death for the PM. The latest was the Prime Minister raising it in his address to BJP leaders on the party’s foundation day on Thursday. He first said on February 24 in Shillong that in response to the Congress slogan, people were saying “Modi Tera Kamal Khilega”. The BJP plans to make this a big issue during the Karnataka election campaign too. The Congress has so far not condemned the slogan made by its leaders on February 23.
“More than the statement, it is the mindset of the Congress which is being called out by the BJP leadership. Unfortunately for them, the holes or graves they dig, they usually end up falling into,” BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla told News18. He said the “Modi Teri Kabr Khudegi mindset of the Congress” was part of the constant 21-year attempt from 2002 to 2023 by this “cottage industry of Modi-phobia that has now become a multinational company of hatred against Modi”. “This is the mindset of the parivar that is so desperate to come to power that it has crossed all limits of political civility,” he said.
Turning the tables
PM Modi was quick to raise the issue in an election rally in Shillong on the very next day after Congress leaders had chanted the slogan. “Those who have been rejected by the people are saying ‘Modi Teri Kabr Khudegi’, but people across the country are saying ‘Modi Tera Kamal Khilega’,” he said. On March 12, while inaugurating projects in Karnataka, the Prime Minister said the Congress was busy dreaming of digging his grave but he was busy dreaming of developing Karnataka. “Congressmen who are dreaming of digging Modi’s grave do not know that Modi’s biggest security shield is the blessings of crores of mothers and sisters,” the PM said.
Home minister Amit Shah had attacked the Congress on the issue while speaking at a public rally in Karnataka on March 3. “What has happened to the Congress under Rahul Gandhi that they are making such slogans?” Shah said. He said the prayers of the Congress would not be heard as all 130 crore people of the country were praying for Modi’s long life.
Speaking in Kerala on March 12, Shah again asked if people were in agreement with the Congress slogan of “Modi Teri Kabr Khudegi” and said he would like to tell Rahul Gandhi that the Congress may try to humiliate Modi but he will return to power stronger.
BJP president JP Nadda while speaking twice last month said such language by the Congress showed its “national character”.
Congress ambivalent in response
The Congress has been ambivalent in its response so far with party leader Udit Raj defending the comment on February 25, saying it was “political language” and meant to say that “the political grave of Modi should be dug”. However, the party has not condemned the statement.
In the past, such personal attacks by the Congress on Modi have boomeranged, like most famously the “Maut Ka Saudagar” comment by Sonia Gandhi in 2007 before the Gujarat elections, or the “100 faces like Ravan” remark by Mallikarjun Kharge on the PM before polls in the state last year.
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