Patna: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s sharp retort to a youth shouting in support of Prime Minister Narendra Modi sparked controversy at a political event in Patna on Sunday.Addressing a gathering at Bapu Sabhagar, Kharge was interrupted when a youth in the audience shouted, “Modi nahin jayega (Modi will not go).” Kharge shot back, “Modi ka baap bhi jayega (Modi’s father, too, will have to go).” Organisers immediately rushed to the youth and pushed him out of the hall.Kharge was delivering the keynote address at a function marking the 139th birth anniversary of Bihar’s first CM Shri Krishna Sinha, who earned a reputation as the “builder of modern Bihar” for his role in abolishing the zamindari system, land reforms, industrialisation and social reform.Kharge also stepped up his attack on the BJP over the special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls, describing the ongoing protests against the exercise as the “second war for Independence”.“If people have no voting rights, the country would be enslaved. It (the protests against the SIR) is the second war for Independence. We will have to fight for our vote, voting rights, for democracy and to save the Constitution,” Kharge said, demanding the rollback of SIR and the use of ballot papers in elections.He alleged “vote chori” in Haryana, Maharashtra, Bihar and West Bengal, and demanded that govts formed through stolen votes be removed. He also accused the BJP of removing opposition supporters from electoral rolls and purchasing MLAs.Kharge targeted former Bihar CM and JD(U) national president Nitish Kumar, saying he had roots in the socialist ideology of Ram Manohar Lohia and Jayaprakash Narayan but had ended up in the “lap of the BJP and the RSS”. Rahul Gandhi, he said, “is alive, is fighting, and also forging ahead by taking all along with him.”Targeting the RSS, Kharge said, “Till the RSS ideology is eliminated, there will be no peace in the country.” He urged people to join Rahul Gandhi’s fight for peace.Referring to his Haldwani experience, Kharge alleged action was not taken against “RSS elements” accused of “purification” of the stage from which he had spoken. “Our fight is not against religion, but against discrimination being made against various sections in the name of religion,” he said.
