New Delhi: Mythology is taking over politics. It was Priyanka Gandhi Vadra who struck first with her Mahabharata analogy that “PM Modi is as arrogant as Duryodhan” – the evil prince in the epic – and this would lead to his downfall. She was hitting back at the prime minister for his jibe that her father was ‘Corrupt number one.’ The thrust of her argument was that the nation has never pardoned arrogance. One such symbol of arrogance was Duryodhan. “They insult my family when they don’t have any other issue. This country has never forgiven arrogance. History is proof of this. Mahabharat is also proof of this. This kind of arrogance was in Duryodhan, too. When Lord Krishna went to him and put the reality in front of him and tried to talk to him, he tried to capture Lord Krishna too,” Priyanka Gandhi said at a rally.
She also recited lines from ‘Krishna Ki Chetawani’ (The Warning of Krishna), a poem by Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, which says that wisdom is the first casualty before someone’s downfall. She said if the prime minister had the “courage”, he should fight the Lok Sabha election on development, jobs, farmers and women’s safety. On Monday, PM Modi had dared the Congress to fight the election on Rajiv Gandhi’s image. Incidentally, Priyanka made the remark at a rally in Ambala, which is in the backyard of Kurukshetra, a region named after King Kuru, the ancestor of Kauravas and Pandavas.
BJP President Amit Shah lost no time in hitting back and pointed out that the Lok Sabha poll results on May 23 will determine whether Modi is Duryodhan or Arjun (the protagonist of Mahabharata). Taking a swipe at the parties in the opposition Grand Alliance, Shah said that its leaders have abused and insulted Modi more than 51 times in the run-up to the 2019 elections.”Congress leaders like Pawan Khera compared Modi ji with Osama Bin Laden, Vijayashanthi dubbed him a terrorist, Mallikarjuna Kharge called him Hitler, while Sanjay Nirupam branded him a village bumpkin. Are these not insults to a Prime Minister?”
“If a former Prime Minister is insulted, the Congress leaders get rattled but when the present Prime Minister is insulted they do not utter a word of protest,” he added. Shah also endorsed Modi’s comment about former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, saying true incidents cannot be termed as insults and asked Congress President Rahul Gandhi to clarify why incidents like the Bofors defence deal or the Bhopal gas tragedy happened when his father was in the Prime Minister’s seat.
“Rahul Gandhi is saying that his father has been insulted. Tell me, can reminding someone about the truth be termed as an insult?” Shah asked the audience at the rally.
“Modi ji said that the Bofors scandal happened during the tenure of Rajiv Gandhi. Did he say anything wrong? Rahul Gandhi should tell the people whether or not the Bofors scam, the Bhopal gas tragedy, the Shanti Sena blunder and the genocide of Kashmiri pandits took place when his father was the Prime Minister,” he added.