“A mother is a mother, after all”: Tejashwi schools PM Modi in respect for women

A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi accused the Congress–RJD of abusing his late mother, ostensibly over a video recorded in Darbhanga during the Voter Adhikar Yatra in Bihar, RJD leader and chief ministerial hopeful Tejashwi Yadav hit back at the PM on X, reminding him of his own track record of hypocrisy when it came to respecting women and mothers.

Addressing nearly 20 lakh women through video conferencing, Modi had said on 2 September: “You all know that my mother is no longer in this world. Some time ago, after completing 100 years, she left us all. My mother, who had nothing to do with politics, was subjected to vile abuses from the RJD–Congress platform. This is deeply saddening, painful, and distressing.”

Taking a swipe at Rahul Gandhi and Tejashwi Yadav, Modi added:
“Princes born in royal families won’t understand the suffering of an underprivileged mother and her son’s struggles. They believe power in Bihar belongs to their families. But you have blessed an underprivileged mother’s son and made him pradhan sevak. The naamdars cannot digest this.”

In response, on 3 September, Wednesday, Tejashwi Yadav in a post on the topic of 'all mothers are mothers', listed several instances where Modi himself, or his BJP colleagues, demeaned women — or, worse, backed those accused of crimes against women. Some of the most repugnant examples were:

1. Modi campaigned for Prajwal Revanna, accused of raping a number of women, calling his support a “masterstroke”.

2. Modi once referred to someone’s mother as a “Rs 50 crore girlfriend”, drawing applause from his followers.

3. He called the wife of a slain prime minister and the mother of the current Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, a “widow of the Congress” and a “jersey cow”.

4. Recently, the BJP’s whip in the Bihar assembly abused Tejashwi’s own mother, and Modi congratulated him.

5. In Manipur, BJP men paraded women naked — were they not someone’s mothers?

The BJP leadership’s hypocrisy is not limited to (dis)respect for women, Tejashwi suggested: “During the farmers’ protest, thousands of farmers died. Farmers and youth are still committing suicide. During the lockdown, lakhs of workers walked barefoot and many perished. Our soldiers were martyred in Pulwama, Pahalgam, and Galwan Valley — yet not a tear from [PM Modi]. But when it suits his politics, he suddenly remembers pain and respect.”

The controversy began after a viral video from Bihar’s Darbhanga district during the Vote Adhikar Yatra showed youngsters hurling abuses at Modi on a stage with posters of Rahul Gandhi and Tejashwi Yadav in the background. Several Congress workers were seen nearby with party flags. Later, the Bihar police arrested Mohammad Rizvi, alias Raja — a resident of Darbhanga.

The BJP escalated the matter, with home minister Amit Shah and other leaders sharing the video, calling it “a new low in politics”.

The Congress, however, dismissed the charge, with party spokesperson Pawan Khera suggesting it was but an instance of the BJP’s “agents” having infiltrated the event to manufacture a controversy. “They are rattled by our Vote Adhikar Yatra. This is a diversionary tactic,” Khera said a day after the incident. For, he asked, why would the INDIA bloc disrupt its own campaign with such antics?

Yesterday, 2 September, after Modi’s accusations, Khera again wondered whether the PM had not in fact insulted his own mother in the past when he claimed he was no “biological entity”.

The fuss around the Darbhanga incident has hardly been the only instance of the BJP attempting to change the narrative around the Opposition’s 'vote chori’ campaign and the Yatra against the conduct of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar. There was, hours before the conclusion of the Yatra and immediately after the Darbhanga incident, an attack on the state party office of the Congress — which is sited in the historic Sadaquat Ashram, which was broken into and vandalised by BJP leaders who, in the presence of local police, fought their way in through a Congress workers’ cordon.