‘Modi ka baap bhi jayega’ (‘Modi’s father too will go’), Mallikarjun Kharge responded when someone from the audience said he will not be ousted without a rebellion against him. This was enough for the BJP bosses to launch nationwide protests against Kharge for ‘insulting’ the PM’s father, who had died in 1989.Senior leaders like Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh will join the ‘Save Democracy, Remove Anarchy’ campaign soon after the opposition’s November 1 protests. This is all part of a drive. Shah may join its padayatras in Haryana and Telangana, while Singh could participate in Bhopal.In reply to Kharge’s ‘Modi ka baap bhi jayega’, the BJP has now released a song ‘Modi kahi nahi jayega’ (‘Modi is not going anywhere’), which is being publicised in a big way.But Shashi Tharoor, who was once moving closer to the BJP, does not agree with this proposition. ‘Modi ka baap bhi jayega’ is a common expression and does not amount to an insult to anybody’s father, he said.Kharge’s ‘Modi ka baap’ remark pales in comparison with the sharp attacks Modi had hurled before and after becoming PM. During L.K. Advani’s Bharat Uday Yatra in 2004, Modi called Sonia Gandhi a ‘Jersey cow’ and Rahul a ‘hybrid calf’. In 2018, she was described as ‘Congress ki vidhva’ (‘Congress’s widow’). His jab on Tharoor was that he was the one with a ‘50 crore girlfriend’. Tharoor was then a Union minister.As for Rahul Gandhi, let us confine ourselves to ‘Pappu’, the most abused term. He got the nickname soon after he began his political career. In fact, he had been the worst victim of nicknames and monikers. Just last month back the Madhya Pradesh chief minister had derided Rahul as ‘Pappu’. This, in turn, had provoked the Congress to say Rahul had already emerged as the “BJP’s papa”.Shah, at his level, has been repeatedly deriding Rahul as Pappu. He had done so even six months before the 2014 elections. “Congress thinks the prime minister’s chair is Pappu’s birthright. But this is a democracy, you need people’s blessings, and the people’s blessings are with Narendra Modi,” said Shah at a rally.The BJP even tried to put the Pappu jab in its election advertisements. However, the Election Commission – this was much before Shah put Gyanesh Kumar in the poll panel – strongly disapproved. The term is ‘derogatory’ towards a ‘specific person who is commonly known by that name’ and cannot be used, the Commission reportedly insisted.It is not that Modi does not misspeak. Look at the bloomers galore by the PM which always go unreported by the pro-government media. The mainstream media carefully avoids any report adverse to Modi. On the other hand, they look for every minor slip up by Rahul Gandhi and highlight these.Even this did not provoke the Congress leader. “The best thing that happened to me as a politician, as a human being, is the abuse I got … from the BJP and the RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh]. [It] has been the biggest gift they could give me.” “I look at Modi when he abuses me and I feel like giving him a hug,” Gandhi said while addressing a public meeting at Bhubaneswar in 2019.Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty.And he had already practiced what he preached. Seconds after ending his address in Lok Sabha during the no-confidence motion, Gandhi walked across the floor to where Modi was seated and gave him a warm hug. The PM did not stand up, yet Rahul gave a tight hug to a visibly flustered Modi.“You have hatred for me. You have anger against me. I am Pappu to you. But I do not have an ounce of hate for any of you,” Rahul said in the Lok Sabha, calling out his opponents who make fun of him using the slang term.P. Raman is a veteran journalist.This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire – and has been republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.