Prime Minister Modi yesterday stood on the floor of the Lok Sabha to reply to the motion of thanks for the President’s address to Parliament at the onset of this year’s budget session. And a reply it indeed was. Even by his own standards, PM Modi’s takedown of the opposition and its hateful leaders yesterday was a class apart.
As the Prime Minister got up to make his speech, BJP parliamentarians started shouting “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” and “Jai Shree Ram” in his support. To this, the opposition replied with “Mahatma Gandhi Ki Jai” and “Mahatma Gandhi Amar Rahe”. PM Modi remained silent for a while, and after the opposition was done putting up its show, he remarked, “Bass, itna he?” Being the frustratingly irritable man that Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury is, he remarked that “Ye toh trailer hai.” The Prime Minister’s reply to this petty remark really set the tone of how his speech was about to unfold before the nation, and obliterate the lies of the opposition. He said, “Aapke liye Gandhi Ji trailer ho sakte hai, humare liye Gandhi Ji zindagi hai“.
The speech of the Prime Minister, as it panned out, left Congress leaders like Rahul Gandhi, Shashi Tharoor, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and Kodikunnil Suresh gasping for air. Tharoor would want to add another chapter in his book, ‘The Great Indian Novel’, about yesterday’s Great Indian Roast of the Congress party.
To begin with, Adhir Ranjan jumping at the drop of a hat inside Lok Sabha and heckling BJP leaders is not new, only that this time he did not realize who he was messing with. Shortly after PM Modi described the Congress’ lethargy and inability to take strong decisions, Chowdhury rose and started shouting. PM Modi laughed off the man, and said that whenever he looks at Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, he immediately wants to congratulate Kiren Rijijju for launching the Fit India movement, as Chowdhury best epitomized the success of the movement.
Following this, the epic ‘Kha Rabdi Kar Kasrat’ remark followed. Interestingly, Kodinunnil Suresh, Congress MP sitting next to Rahul Gandhi was seen lavishly laughing at all of PM Modi’s comments targeting the Congress, to the extent that even the Prime Minister couldn’t help but ask, “Ye Suresh ji itna kyu hass rahe hai bhai?”, and then went on to say, “Suresh Ji kabhi aapka bhi mauka aayega itni jaldi mat kijiye.” Suresh was also seen wholeheartedly laughing out loud when PM Modi called Rahul Gandhi a tubelight.
Next in line was the Congress’ prince charming, Rahul Gandhi, who faced the wrath of PM Modi’s sarcasm after he made a threat to PM Modi that he would be beaten with dandas in a few months by the youth of the country. The Prime Minister said, “I heard a Congress leader say that the youth will hit Modi with sticks in six months. I have decided that I will increase my frequency of ‘Surya Namaskar’ so that my back becomes so strong that it can bear the hit of so many sticks.” He added, “For the past 20 years, I have heard a lot of abuses and been gaali-proof. Now, I will make myself danda-proof.”
This is how brilliantly PM @narendramodi ji replies to Rahul Gandhi's jibe "Dande Marenge.
House erupted in laughter when he said some tubelights are like this, that he is speaking since 30-40 minutes but current reaches now.
Watch.#PMinLokSabha pic.twitter.com/XXsc7qcz61— Sunil Deodhar (Modi Ka Parivar) (@Sunil_Deodhar) February 6, 2020
Caught off guard, the best Rahul could think of at that moment was to stand up while the PM was speaking and blurt out a few random inaudible phrases. This gave PM Modi all the more reason to make Rahul regret his existence as a politician. “I was speaking for the last 30-40 minutes but it took this long for the current to reach there. Many tubelights are like this,” the Prime Minister remarked. For Rahul Gandhi to be called a tubelight in the Parliament by none other than the Prime Minister is indeed a new high for the man.
The otherwise eloquent Shashi Tharoor was also in the line of fire yesterday, when PM Modi, while speaking about Jammu & Kashmir and Article 370, reminded the country of the deprivation that the archaic law had caused to the people of J&K. The PM said that Shashi, of all politicians, should be sympathetic to Kashmir’s cause of integrating with India as he is the Damaad (son-in-law) of the valley. It is interesting to see the Prime Minister bring in this angle of Tharoor’s life in his speech, even as the word-loaded politician faces charges of abetting the suicide of his wife, Sunanda Pushkar, who belonged to J&K.
The Prime Minister’s speech yesterday was surely in response to months of unadulterated propaganda being run by the opposition on the issue of CAA and the proposed nationwide NRC. The Congress especially has been engaged in spreading all sorts of lies regarding the government’s policies, leading to a large number of people being fed wrong notions about CAA. With yesterday’s speech, it is now clear that the opposition will have a free run only till the time the Prime Minister decides not to speak up and expose them. Because when that happens, as seen yesterday, all their propaganda falls flat. It is all about when and how PM Modi chooses to respond.