Modi apologises to guards for Rahul’s chowkidar jibe on him

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday apologised to security guards for Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s ‘chowkidar chor hai’ jibe, which, he said, was offensive to them. The move is similar to BJP’s 2014 strategy to capitalise on Mani Shankar Aiyar’s remark at an AICC session that ‘Modi was free to sell tea’.

Gandhi has been using ‘chowkidar chor hai’ to attack Modi on the Rafale deal based on his remarks when he took over as PM that he would be the nation’s ‘chowkidar’. During an interaction with security guards from different parts of the country on Tuesday, Modi tried to portray Gandhi’s jibe as a commentary on them.

“I want to apologise as some people in the last few months have run a disinformation campaign against chowkidars, for their vested interests, saying ‘chowkidar chor hai’, which raises questions about the integrity of chowkidars of the nation,” said Modi during his interaction with security guards via audio bridge.


Modi reiterated that his job was also to be alert 24x7 like them in an attempt to re-emphasise that he was a ‘crusader against corruption’, ahead of Lok Sabha polls.

“The way chowkidar chor hai has been repeatedly said to insult you, has hurt you...No matter how much they insult us calling us chor, we don’t have to be afraid, and we should embrace such insults like ornaments,” the PM said.

Modi’s audio bridge is a follow-up of his ‘Main Bhi Chowkidar’ campaign kicked off last Saturday by which he used the prefix ‘chowkidar’ on his twitter handle account. All BJP ministers and central leaders followed suit to give a push to the BJP’s call urging people to join the initiative to fight corruption.

In 2014, the BJP had used Aiyar’s jibe to build a narrative that Modi hailed from an underprivileged background and which is believed to have found resonance among a section of voters.