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'She's gone, yet targeted': PM Modi gets emotional over mother's 'insult' at Rahul Gandhi's Bihar rally
A controversy broke out after a video clip on floated on social media last week, showing some unidentified people using a Hindi abuse for PM Modi.
Addressing for the first time the controversy over the alleged use of abusive language for his late mother, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday called the matter “painful”, saying that she is gone yet targeted. He was addressing the launch of the Bihar Rajya Jeevika Nidhi Saakh Sahkari Sangh Limited.
With his voice cracking, PM Modi said it was insult to all mothers and daughters of Bihar. Bihar BJP president Dilip Jaiswal broke down as he watched PM Modi speak.
A controversy broke out after a video clip on floated on social media last week, showing some unidentified people using a Hindi abuse for PM Modi from a dais raised during Congress leader's 'Voter Adhikar Yatra' in poll-bound Bihar.
The video, which has gone viral, is purportedly of Darbhanga district from where the yatra had taken off on Wednesday morning last week, when Gandhi, his sister and Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra as well as RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav left for Muzaffarpur on motorcycles. HT could not independently verify the authenticity of the video.
“My mother separated me from her so that I could serve crores of mothers like you. You all know that now my mother is not alive. Some time ago, after completing 100 years of age, she left us all. That mother of mine, who has nothing to do with politics, who is no more, was abused from the stage of the RJD, Congress,” PM Modi said on Tuesday.
“What was the fault of that mother.”
Hurling abuses at my mother is nothing for those who insult ‘Mother India’… such people must be punished, PM Modi added.
Recalling how he was brought up by his mother, PM Modi said she raised him and the family in extreme poverty, adding that she would “never buy a new saree for herself and would save every penny for our family.”
Taking a dig at Tejashwi Yadav and Rahul Gandhi, PM Modi said these “yuvraj” born in royal families cannot understand the 'tapasya' of a poor mother and the pain of her son. “They were born with a silver spoon in their mouth. They think that the power of the country and of Bihar is the legacy of their family. They feel that they should only get the chair,” PM Modi said.
PM Modi said that the times when "anti-women" parties came to power, mothers and sisters have suffered the most. "The mindset that abuses the mother, the mindset that abuses the sister, considers women to be weak. This mindset considers women to be objects of exploitation and oppression. Therefore, whenever the anti-women mindset has come to power, mothers, sisters and daughters have suffered the most. During the RJD era, crime and criminals were rampant in Bihar. When murder, ransom and rape were common. The RJD government used to give protection to murderers and rapists. Who had to bear the brunt of that RJD rule? The women of Bihar had to bear it," PM Modi said.
The BJP had reacted sharply to the alleged abuses directed at the prime minister, alleging that Rahul Gandhi-led 'Voter Adhikar Yatra' has crossed all "limits of insult, hate and tastelessness".
BJP MP and national spokesperson Sambit Patra blamed Rahul Gandhi for the alleged hurling of abuses against Modi and said on Thursday that the Congress, which often associates itself with the freedom struggle, has become a “gali wali party” because 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]," Patra had said.
Earlier, in a post on X, the BJP had said, “Tejashwi (Yadav) and Rahul are behind the use of such a filthy language that it cannot be repeated from a public platform... Such lowliness was never seen before in politics. This Yatra has crossed all limits of insult, hate and tastelessness."
RJD's Tejashwi Yadav has been accompanying Rahul Gandhi on his Voter Adhikar Yatra, which was launched on August 17 to raise awareness of what the Congress has claimed is widespread vote theft or "chori" by the Election Commission of India at the behest of the BJP.
