Santosh Kumar, the man whose four words started the row at a Patna event, said his contention wasn’t heard in full, and that he meant the exact opposite of keeping PM Modi in power. The Congress president reacted to the wrong phrase, he said.
Four words in Hindi rang across a hall in Patna on Sunday: “Modi kahin nahin jayega (PM Narendra Modi won’t go anywhere).” Mallikarjun Kharge reacted immediately and angrily to a heckle that wasn’t. “Modi ka baap bhi jayega (Even his father will have to go),” the Congress chief said, repeating himself thrice, raising the right arm high for emphasis. The man who said the four words, though, said his sentence wasn’t heard in full, and that he meant the exact opposite.
It was already too late for nuance.
Kharge’s ‘baap’ retort has by now drawn in multiple ministers and the whole roster of BJP leaders demanding an apology from the veteran leader. The ruling party has announced a nationwide series of protests on the issue.
The Lost ‘Unless’
“I was actually saying, ‘Unless the public revolts, Modi will not go,” said the not-a-heckler Santosh Kumar, after he’d received a beating and been thrown out of the venue.
That “unless” bit was lost in the din, twice over — first inside a Congress hall and then in the BJP’s chorus.
Standing out in a dark orange shirt, Santosh Kumar was in the audience at an event marking the 139th birth anniversary of Shri Krishna Singh, Bihar’s first chief minister.
Kharge was speaking on the alleged electoral fraud that has fuelled a series of protests by the Congress-led Opposition and the youth Group Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) in recent weeks. After Santosh Kumar’s exchange with Kharge, several other attendees surrounded the man, threw him to the ground, beat him, and threw him out of the hall, assuming him to be a Trojan Horse.
Outside, Santosh Kumar sought to prove his true credentials by shouting, “Narendra Modi has done nothing for the country in 12 years as PM! The whole country is now rising against him! We need a massive public revolt!”
No count of sentences or decibels could now trump the earlier half-sentence, which took on a life of its own.
Each side has already found what it was looking for.
Chorus For Apology
Home Minister Amit Shah said in a post on X that Kharge’s jibe showed how the Congress had “torn apart all norms of decorum”. He placed the remark in a longer list: “They have hurled insults at his revered mother, called him ‘merchant of death’, and mocked his poverty by calling him ‘chaiwala’.”
Senior BJP leader Dharmendra Pradhan, who recently lost the education ministry after a mass protest by the CJP over paper leaks, asked whether the Congress had run out of arguments against the PM. BJP chief Nitin Nabin said the Opposition resorts to personal attacks as it has no issues left to debate. BJP spokesperson Tuhin Sinha used the words “disgusting, petulant, uncouth”.
Sambit Patra’s comment pointedly showed how Santosh Kumar’s later clarifications meant nothing in the narrative. The BJP MP and spokesperson insisted, “Congress workers themselves, at a party meeting where their national president was speaking, appeared convinced that Rahul Gandhi was not capable of leading the party to victory… Even an ordinary Congress worker seems to understand this.”
The Congress worker in question, by his own account, wanted a “revolt” against the BJP regime. He just wasn’t heard in full.
Union Minister Giriraj Singh, meanwhile, sought to settle the very question the half-sentence raised.
He said PM Modi, who turned 76 this year, “will stay in power for at least another 30 years”.
“Modi Ka baap bhi jaayega” : Congress
Frustration of Congress is out in the open!
Knowing its 1st November rally is about to be a flop show, knowing Rahul Gandhi’s anarchy is being called out, knowing it is not getting support of People of India; Congress frustration is out in the open!
Congress statement proves People of India are with PM Modi.
— Pradeep Bhandari(प्रदीप भंडारी)🇮🇳 (@pradip103) October 25, 2026
The Congress, too, continued to misread Santosh Kumar. Bihar Congress chief Rajesh Ram told NDTV that he was a BJP supporter who said “BJP-type things”. When told that Santosh Kumar described himself as a Congressman who was misheard, Rajesh Ram did not budge: “Whatever his statement may be, would any Congressman make such a statement?”