Objecting to the BJP’s official X handle sharing an image of Rahul Gandhi, in which he is depicted as a new-age Ravan, the Congress on Thursday accused the BJP of trying to incite violence against Mr. Gandhi.
Congress general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal accused the BJP of trying to “murder” Mr. Gandhi while his party colleague and communication chief Jairam Ramesh called it “outright dangerous”.
“No words are enough to condemn the shameful graphic on the BJP handle comparing Sh. @RahulGandhi ji to Ravana. Their nefarious intentions are clear, they want to murder him,” Mr. Venugopal said in a post.
The Congress leader said the government first withdrew Mr. Gandhi’s SPG [special protection group] to score petty political points and haven’t allocated another house that he has requested for.
“All this points to a well-planned conspiracy of the BJP to eliminate their fiercest critic, someone who attacks the very core of their hate-filled ideology,” Mr Venugopal added.
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, in a post on X, asked if the Prime Minister and BJP chief J.P. Nadda approved of the “provocative and inciteful post”.
The BJP’s poster comes a day after the Congress posted on X a picture of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the caption “The Biggest Liar”. Another post called Mr. Modi a “Jumla Boy,” who was “Going to hit the election rally soon”.
Hitting back, the BJP on its official handle on X shared a poster of Mr. Gandhi with several heads with the title “Bharat Khatre Mein Hai [India is in danger] - A Congress party production. Directed by George Soros”.
“The new age Ravan is here. He is Evil. Anti Dharma. Anti Ram. His aim is to destroy Bharat,” the BJP said on X.
“What is the real intent of an atrocious graphic portraying Rahul Gandhi as Ravan by the BJP’s official handle? It is clearly intended to incite and provoke violence against a Congress MP and a former President of the party, whose father and grandmother were assassinated by forces that want to divide India,” Mr. Ramesh said in a post on X.
“It is one thing for the PM to give evidence daily of being a pathological liar and of suffering from a narcissistic personality disorder. But for him to get his party to produce something this obnoxious is not just completely unacceptable, but is downright dangerous,” he added.
Senior leader Anand Sharma said, “BJP is rattled by Rahul Gandhi’s rising popularity and their own falling graph”.
However, responding to the Ravan poster, Youth Congress chief Srinivas B.V. put out a poster of Mr. Modi, portraying him as a demon and titled it as “Hindustan Khatre Mein Hain”.
“The new age Modanav is here. He is evil. Anti democracy. Anti Constitution. Anti People. Anti Humanity,” read the poster put out by the Youth Congress chief.
