New Delhi: A social media war has erupted between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress, with the principal opposition party offering a sardonic take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intelligence by calling him a “bael buddhi” (low IQ), countering his “balak buddhi” jibe at Leader of the Opposition (LoP) Rahul Gandhi.
The Congress’s social media managers asserted that it was time to pay the BJP back “in its own coin”, saying it was the ruling party that has relentlessly targeted Gandhi, hurling many epithets, the latest of which — Balak Buddhi (immature mind) — came from Modi himself in the Lok Sabha.
Congress social media head Supriya Shrinate said the party felt the need to target Modi in such a fashion because the Amit Malviya-led BJP information technology cell, popularly known as the IT cell, had been making personal attacks on Gandhi with disparaging terms. Apart from X (formerly Twitter), the Congress has also been making these posts on Instagram.
Even as the Congress goes after Modi, Gandhi advised his own party colleagues Friday to “refrain from using derogatory language and being nasty towards Smt. Smriti Irani or any other leader for that matter.”
Gandhi posted on X, “Winning and losing happen in life…Humiliating and insulting people is a sign of weakness, not strength”.
Ever since losing the Amethi Lok Sabha constituency to the Congress’s Kishori Lal Sharma, Irani has been at the receiving end of social media trolling, with many Congress functionaries and social media accounts sympathetic to the party targeting her over statements made against the Gandhi family in the past.
In the past, Gandhi had said that regardless of the taunts and abuses hurled at him, he did not hold any personal grudge against Modi or any other BJP leader. “You have anger and hatred for me, I am Pappu for you, you may abuse me, but I don’t harbour any anger or hatred for you,” Gandhi had said, addressing the Lok Sabha in 2018.
But there was no letup in the BJP’s barbs. In his Lok Sabha speech on 1 July, during the Motion of Thanks to the President’s address, Modi repeatedly infantilised Gandhi. “Balak buddhi ko kaun samjhaye tumne fail hone ka record bana diya hai?” he had said, mocking the Congress for getting less than 100 seats (99) for a third consecutive time.
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Congress’s jibes at Modi
The 2024 Lok Sabha campaign marked a subtle shift in Gandhi’s approach. In many campaign speeches, he took swipes at Modi over the latter’s remarks during television interviews that he was “convinced” that God sent him to Earth with a specific purpose. Gandhi did so even in his first speech as the LoP in the Lok Sabha, as he wondered how Modi could suggest that he was not biological.
Taking a cue from Gandhi’s speech, the Congress social media campaign, launched on 10 July, has now released a series of video clips showing gaffes made by the prime minister, from his 2018 remarks on using sewer gas to make tea, to him calling Austria ‘Australia’ while addressing the Indian community in Austria on 10 July.
“Bael buddhi goes International,” Youth Congress president Srinivas BV posted on X Thursday, attaching a clip of Modi referring to Austria as Australia before correcting himself after the mistake was pointed out by people in the audience. The Congress also posted similar clips on its official Instagram account with the caption “bael buddhi pro max”.
The posts made by the Congress include a short video clip that seeks to define the characteristics of a person with a low IQ. “A bael budhhi is one who makes tall claims, who prepares tea using gas in [the] gutter, who says his memory is photogenic, one who encourages youth to sell fritters for a living, who makes remarks devoid of any head or tail,” the voiceover in the clip states.
Many other clips posted by the Congress mock the prime minister over instances of him struggling to spell or pronounce certain words such as “biodegradable” and “strength”, his wrong usage of an algebraic expression, and his claim that as a child, he had brought a baby crocodile home, among others.
Shrinate said the Congress should not be accused of lowering the political discourse through the campaign. “How many of you were dismayed and called out Modi when he used [a] word like mujra? Silence on mujra, mangalsutra, buffalo. Silence on calling the LoP balak buddhi. Then remain silent now as well, don’t lecture. You will be treated with respect if you give respect,” she posted on X.
“BJP’s fake news factory also called its IT cell needs to be paid back in its own coin. Each time you say balak buddhi, you will hear bael buddhi more and more forcefully,” she added, suggesting that the Congress’s new combative approach was here to stay.
(Edited by Radifah Kabir)
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Only a handful in the parliament are intelligent. Cardiologist turned politician Dr C N Manjunath, Sudha Murthy are the some of the notable ones. The rest are socialist dumbos.