Congress' AI video of Modi's mother: BJP slams Rahul, Grand Alliance in Bihar

An AI-generated video featuring Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his late mother Heeraben Modi has given the BJP fresh ammunition to slam Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and his Grand Alliance partners in poll-bound Bihar for plunging political discourse to its nadir.

The 36-second video, shared on the official X handle of the Congress’ Bihar unit, shows Modi being reprimanded in his dream by his late mother. The dream sequence has Heeraben telling Modi, “you made me stand in long notebandi queues (a reference to the Prime Minister’s controversial demonetisation move of 2016), got reels made of washing my feet and now you are doing politics in my name in Bihar; getting posters and banners printed of my insult. You are once again trying nautanki (theatrics) in Bihar, how low would you fall for politics.”

Backlash from BJP, NDA partners

The video predictably triggered a blistering backlash from the BJP and its NDA partners, who have blamed Rahul for the distasteful video. The row once again drags Modi’s late mother into the vortex of an increasingly acerbic poll campaign weeks after Congress ally RJD’s senior leader Tejashwi Yadav had adroitly fended off the Prime Minister’s tirade against Rahul and him for “getting my late mother abused”.

Also read: BJP condemns AI video of PM Modi’s late mother; Congress refutes allegations

On August 27, a man from Bihar’s Darbhanga district had hurled abuses at Modi at a venue that Rahul and Tejashwi had left moments earlier during their Voter Adhikar Yatra. Days later, on September 2, launching a women’s cooperative federation in Bihar via video conferencing, Modi had weaponised the August 27 episode with his characteristic rhetorical flourish, asserting, “my mother, whose body has left us, who is not alive today and who had nothing to do with politics, was abused from the dais of the RJD and Congress.” The Prime Minister had then gone on to equate the alleged insult heaped on his dead mother with “an insult of all the mothers and daughters of Bihar and of the entire country.”

The immediate response of the Opposition to Modi’s broadside was muted as many in the Grand Alliance felt engaging with the Prime Minister on the issue could backfire ahead of the impending Bihar Assembly polls. A day later, hoping to douse the simmering controversy before Modi could fan it into a raging fire, Tejashwi had the Prime Minister of his own vitriolic attacks at Rahul’s mother and former Congress president Sonia Gandhi and also recounted several instances when other BJP leaders had hurled abuses at women leaders from the Opposition.

Tejashwi's counterstrike

Tejashwi’s counterstrike, backed by similar assertions by other Grand Alliance members from the Congress and CPI-MLL, had effectively put a lid on the row and helped the Opposition steer the narrative back to its electoral pitch of alleged ‘vote chori’ (vote theft) by the BJP through the Election Commission’s (EC) ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) of the state’s voter rolls.

Also read: Public empathy for Modi's mother unlikely to translate into votes in Bihar

Nearly a fortnight later, just as the Grand Alliance was working overtime to sharpen its poll narrative, the Bihar Congress’ infelicitous folly has afforded the BJP to reignite the waning controversy. What could now make the situation hard to salvage for the Congress is the brazen justification for the controversial video given by the party’s media and publicity wing chief Pawan Khera and parroted by leaders of the Bihar Congress.

“Where is the disrespect shown to his late mother? Show me one word, one gesture… It is the duty of parents to educate their children. She is only educating her child and if the child thinks that it is disrespectful towards him, it is his headache, not mine. Why does the BJP try to make an issue out of everything and try to generate fake sympathy? There is no fake sympathy for these things anymore. Modi cannot do ‘touch me not’ politics, he is in politics and he needs to take everything, even a sense of humour of the Opposition properly and actually there is no humour in it, there is naseehat (advice) in this,” Khera told a news agency.

'Worthless son'

The Congress’ Bihar unit too insisted that the video was not an insult to the Prime Minister’s mother but one that showed Heeraben in a “dignified way”. Dubbing Modi a “worthless son”, Rajesh Rathorre, chairman of the Bihar Congress’ media and publicity department, told The Federal, “every good mother scolds his worthless son when he does wrong things; if a child is worthless, it is not the mother’s fault… A worthy son keeps the social fabric intact, you (Modi) are breaking it”.

Also read: As euphoria over Voter Adhikar Yatra wears off, INDIA Bloc bickers over seats in Bihar

Though there has been no reaction to the video from Modi for now, a battery of BJP leaders, including several Union ministers and chief ministers of BJP-ruled states, have come out all guns blazing at the Opposition, in particular against Rahul and his Congress party, signalling that the verbal duel is going to get much uglier in the days to come.

Stern caution to Congress

Slamming the Congress and the RJD for their “vile and shameful act”, Nityanand Rai, Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s deputy and former president of the Bihar BJP, said that by insulting the Prime Minister and his late mother again, “it seems Rahul and Tejashwi have taken a vow to not mend their ways”.

Sources in the Grand Alliance told The Federal that the Congress’ misstep had caused unease within the Opposition group too, which had hoped that the controversy triggered by the August 27 incident and Modi’s diatribe against it had been given quietus with Tejashwi’s riposte of September 3.

The RJD, it is learnt, has sent a stern word of caution to the Congress, advising the state leadership to refrain from further “below the belt” attacks at Modi and instead “focus on issues of vote chori, SIR, unemployment, migration and law and order”. A similar message has been conveyed to the Congress by the Left parties, which are also part of the Bihar Grand Alliance, sources confirmed to The Federal.