Kharge's 'Modi ka baap' remark sparks nationwide BJP protests as India's opposition row escalates

On Monday, October 26, the Bharatiya Janata Party said it would hold protest rallies across India, some of them involving the burning of effigies. The cause was a sentence spoken a day earlier by Mallikarjun Kharge, president of the Indian National Congress, at a party event in the eastern state of Bihar.

Kharge was speaking about the national revision of voter rolls, which Congress has been campaigning against for a year. The party accuses Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government of using the process to steal votes. Reports of mass deletions of voter names, and of irregularities by India's election body, have drawn protests from opposition parties, political pressure groups and student organizations.

At the event, Kharge claimed that all officials responsible for the irregularities, Modi included, would be sent to jail. According to the Press Trust of India, an audience member then shouted that as long as there was no rebellion, Modi wouldn't go anywhere. Kharge answered: "Modi ka baap bhi jayega," which translates as "even Modi's father will go to jail." The phrase is common in India, but BJP leaders said that bringing in the prime minister's late father was deeply offensive.

Home Minister Amit Shah, regarded as Modi's right-hand man, called it an "indecent remark" and posted on X that Congress has a history of abusive language toward Modi and his family. He listed insults to Modi's revered mother, the label "merchant of death," and mockery of his poverty through the word "chaiwala." Shah said Congress under Rahul Gandhi crosses the limits of indecency daily, and claimed the party had turned to personal attacks out of desperation and frustration over losing its political base.

A BJP spokesperson asked on social media whether this was the language expected from the national president of a party that claims to uphold democratic values. The party's official handle urged opponents to oppose politically but not weaponize respect for late parents, adding that 140 crore Indians, or 1.4 billion people, would never forgive those who insult their elders. Congress leaders defended Kharge, saying the BJP has often made personal remarks about Congress members at rallies.

The row came on a day of other news. A court in Sultanpur, Uttar Pradesh, acquitted Rahul Gandhi in a defamation case brought by a BJP member over a 2018 state election speech in which he allegedly called Shah an "accused murder." The acquittal arrives as Gandhi leads a united opposition campaign against Modi and the Chief Election Commissioner over the voter list revision.

In Delhi, two people died when a large slab of an under-construction house in the northeast of the city fell on contractors on Sunday evening. Rescuers worked overnight and recovered the bodies of 60-year-old Chanderpal and his 36-year-old son Vijay Kumar on Monday morning. In September, a five-storey building housing paying-guest students collapsed in the capital, killing at least seven.

On the border, China's Foreign Ministry said it was carrying out normal patrol and control activities, answering India's claim that Chinese forces deviated from established patterns and caused a standoff in Arunachal Pradesh. Prince Alois of Liechtenstein, with Princess Sophie, reached Mumbai on the second day of a four-day state visit, with a banquet hosted by President Droupadi Murmu and talks with Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar ahead.

What to watch is whether the BJP protests grow beyond effigy burnings, and whether the quarrel over a single phrase pulls attention from the opposition's voter roll campaign or reinforces it.