Chowkidar beats chor hai: Modi uses insults to his advantage

New Delhi: Throughout the election campaign, Congress President Rahul Gandhi used the slogan 'Chowkidar Chor Hai' as his hitting line on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. However, sources in Congress tell ET that initially Rahul Gandhi was not comfortable with the term 'Chowkidar' as it is a profession.

“The 'Chowkidar Chor Hai' slogan was designed to remind people of all the failed promises of 2014 and break the image of Modi as being incorruptible, in the backdrop of the demonetisation and the Rafale scam,” said Pravin Mishra, the man who coined this slogan. After much pursuance from Mishra and Congress general secretary Dipak Babaria, Rahul used this slogan for the first time on September 20 last year at an election rally in Rajasthan. “Gali Gali Mein Shor Hai, Desh Ka Chowkidar Chor Hai,” was what Rahul had said.

Next day, it was headlines in major newspapers and Congress leadership was of the idea that the campaign was working well. Since then it became a regular slogan at rallies of Gandhi. After the assembly elections win, the party was of the thinking that the slogan has resonated well with the voters and it carried on with it in the LS polls.

Since his days as Gujarat chief minister, whenever Congress made personal attacks against him, Modi turned around the slogans to his advantage. Prime Minister Modi would often call himself a “chowkidar” and underline that he is working tirelessly to safeguard their interests. Rahul Gandhi used this to launch the attack on the Modi government on the Rafale deal and coined the slogan ‘Chowkidar Chor Hai’, only to see it backfire now.

Party sources said Modi took this attack personally and got his team to get feedback from the ground. The BJP social media team as well as some officials in the Prime Minister’s Office collated the information and found people, especially in the northern states, were offended by it as they felt Modi has a clean image and the charge was false. Modi sprung a surprise when he initiated the ‘Main Bhi Chowkidar’ campaign on March 16. BJP leaders and ministers across the country used the ‘Chowkidar’ prefix on their twitter handles.

BJP got a further boost when Gandhi was hauled up by the Supreme Court for his remarks that even the apex court has said “Chowkidar chor hai”. In 2014, Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar made the controversial remark that Modi cannot become prime minister but he can come to the Congress conclave and sell tea, a dig at his humble background. Modi’s team launched the ‘Chai Pe Charcha’ campaign that put Congress on the backfoot.

A few months before the 2014 general elections, Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad had attacked Modi saying, “Kahan raja Bhoj, aur kahan Gangu teli”. BJP alleged that Azad was referring to Modi’s caste and his background.

In the 2007 Gujarat assembly elections, BJP had turned around the ‘Maut Ka Saudagar’ comment by Congress chief Sonia Gandhi against Modi to polarise the electorate and win comfortably.