BJP & Cong Have Always Played Dirty When It Comes to Mudslinging

No, Mani Shankar Aiyar didn’t start the political fire. Turns out, it was always burning.

When elections approach, mudslinging and politicking go hand in hand – and this Gujarat election has been no different.

Mani Shankar Aiyar calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi a “neech kism ka insaan (a lowly person)” may have been the faux pas that grabbed the highest number of headlines this election season, but his comment was certainly not the only objectionable one.

Here’s a look at the political slurs traded by politicians from the BJP and the Congress over the years. Evidently, parliamentarians across the board seldom shy away from using unparliamentary language.

When BJP Spoke Dirty: From "Maun Mohan Singh" To "Pasta Ben"

• Speaking of racist stereotypes, PM Modi is said to have “jokingly” called Congress President Sonia Gandhi “pasta ben”.
• In 2013, BJP supporter and yoga guru Baba Ramdev in 2013, said that then PM Manmohan Singh was “impotent”. He told reporters, “Madam ka shahzada kuch zyaada hee kud raha hai aur hamare pradhan mantra mard hote hue bhi namard jaisa kaam kar rahe hain (Despite prince’s unruly ways, our Prime Minister is behaving as if he is impotent).”
• In October 2012, while campaigning in Himachal Pradesh, Modi called Manmohan “Maun Mohan Singh”. He was quoted as saying, “Maun Mohan Singh had come to Himachal yesterday. The biggest headlines in newspapers today are that Maun Mohan Singhji broke his silence in Himachal. Have these two people (the Prime Minister and Sonia Gandhi) spoken a word on inflation?”

• Modi also lashed out at UPA minister Shashi Tharoor in the run up to the Himachal polls in 2012, referring to his wife Sunanda Pushkar as “Rs 50 crore girlfriend”. Speaking at a rally in Mandi, he said: “Wah kya girlfriend hai. Apne kabhi dekha hai Rs 50 crore ka girlfriend? (Wow, what a girlfriend. Have you ever seen a Rs 50 crore girlfriend?)”

• In an article for the Hindustan Times, journalist Sujata Anandan recounts how Modi – in the run-up to the 2004 Lok Sabha elections – had described Sonia Gandhi as a “jersey cow” and Rahul Gandhi as her “hybrid calf”.
• In run up to the 2017 Gujarat polls, Modi said that Rahul Gandhi's imminent appointment as Congress President was reminiscent of “Aurangzeb Raj”. BJP leader Narasimha Rao went a step further while attacking the Congress over its position on the Ayodhya dispute, referring to the Congress vice president as  a “Babar bhakt” and “Kin of Khilji”.

When Congress Got Nasty: “Napunsak”, “Mad Dog”, “Namonitis” Jibes

• In 2014, referring to Modi, Congress leader Salman Khurshid had said, “We don’t accuse you (Modi) of killing people… Hamara aarop hai ki tum napunsak ho. (Our accusation is you are impotent). You could not stop the killers.”
• In 2013, former Union Minister in Manmohan Singh’s Cabinet, Beni Prasad Verma, called Modi a “mad dog”. The remark came after Modi said that he had done “absolutely the right thing” at the time of the 2002 Gujarat riots. He had also used a puppy analogy while referring to the deaths in his state during the pogrom.

• In 2013, Congress member Renuka Chowdhury compared former Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi to a “virus” called “Namonitis” after senior BJP leaders skipped the party’s national executive in Goa. “It seems a strange virus called Namonitis has affected their senior leaders,” then Congress spokesperson Renuka Chowdhury had told reporters.
• Former Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee chief Arjun Modhwadia called Modi a “monkey” and a “person bitten by a rabid dog” during a public meeting in Vadodara in 2012.
• Congress President Sonia Gandhi reportedly called Modi “Maut ka Saudagar (merchant of death)” during her Gujarat election campaign speech in 2007.