When political opposition sinks to personal ridicule: Rahul Gandhi’s latest low against PM Modi
Rahul Gandhi’s latest swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi has once again shown how far political discourse can sink when criticism loses its substance and becomes personal mockery.
At the Congress’s Rachnatmak Congress National Convention on August 13, Gandhi attacked PM Modi’s foreign policy by reducing diplomacy to the Prime Minister’s practice of embracing foreign leaders. He then staged a hug with Congress leader Sandeep Dikshit to make his point. Dikshit dragged Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni into the exchange with the remark, “You weren’t hugging me thinking I was Meloni?” The episode has triggered a political storm, with the BJP calling it a new low and accusing Gandhi of making objectionable remarks involving the leader of a friendly country.
Rahul Gandhi has once again shown how low he can stoop to!!
Dragging PM Modi and Giorgia Meloni into cheap and distasteful remarks is is a complete collapse of dignity and decorum.
What a shame for the LoP of our nation! pic.twitter.com/SQA5vTXj8O
— Vishnu Vardhan Reddy (@SVishnuReddy) August 13, 2026
This was not a serious critique of India’s foreign policy. It was political theatre masquerading as statesmanship.
And that distinction matters.
Rahul Gandhi is not an ordinary opposition politician making a joke at a roadside rally. He is the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. He occupies one of the most important constitutional-political positions in the country. He is expected to scrutinise the government, challenge the Prime Minister, expose failures and present an alternative vision for India.
Instead, he chose the politics of the schoolyard.
If Gandhi believes PM Modi’s foreign policy is ineffective, he should explain where India has lost diplomatic leverage, which strategic relationships have weakened, which agreements have failed, or where national interests have been compromised. That would be opposition politics.
Reducing international diplomacy to a joke about hugs is not.
Dragging Meloni’s name into that joke makes the episode even more distasteful. Whether or not Gandhi himself uttered her name, the exchange happened on his stage, during his performance, and in the context of his attack on PM Modi.
Apparently, a hug is diplomacy only when PM Modi does it.
There is an irony here that Gandhi’s political handlers should perhaps have noticed.
Warm personal gestures between leaders are hardly a Narendra Modi invention.
In March 1983, Cuban leader Fidel Castro famously gave Indira Gandhi a bear hug at the Non-Aligned Movement summit in New Delhi. The moment became one of the memorable images of that summit.
Nobody reasonably concluded from that embrace that India’s foreign policy under Indira Gandhi consisted of hugging foreign leaders.
So the question is rather simple: If a foreign leader embracing India’s Prime Minister is diplomacy when the Prime Minister is Indira Gandhi, why does it become a punchline when the Prime Minister is PM Modi?
Political criticism should have consistency. Otherwise, it is not principle. It is partisan convenience.
From ‘panauti’ to ‘Gabbar Singh’: a pattern, not an isolated incident
The latest episode cannot be viewed entirely in isolation.
Gandhi has repeatedly resorted to personalised political attacks against PM Modi.
In November 2023, after India’s World Cup final defeat to Australia, Gandhi called PM Modi “panauti”, suggesting that the Prime Minister’s presence had caused India to lose the match. The Election Commission subsequently issued Gandhi a notice over his remarks.
Think about the sheer pettiness of that episode.
A cricket team loses a World Cup final. Millions of Indians are heartbroken. The players are devastated. And the Leader of the Opposition’s political instinct is to turn a national sporting disappointment into an opportunity to mock the Prime Minister of India.
That is not robust democratic opposition.
That is politics reduced to cheap superstition and personal ridicule.
Years earlier, Gandhi had also compared PM Modi to Gabbar Singh, the villain from Sholay, saying voters had been promised the hero of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge but had ended up with Gabbar Singh.
His supporters may call these colourful political metaphors.
But there is a difference between political satire and a political strategy that increasingly depends on turning the Prime Minister of India into a caricature rather than confronting his policies.
Where is the alternative?
This is the fundamental problem with Gandhi’s politics.
- If PM Modi is supposedly incompetent, what is Gandhi’s alternative?
- If India’s foreign policy is supposedly a failure, what is the Congress blueprint?
- If PM Modi’s diplomacy is supposedly nothing more than photo opportunities, which strategic relationship does Gandhi believe India should abandon? Which one should it strengthen? What would he do differently?
- If the government has failed on the economy, defence, national security or diplomacy, then make the case.
- Bring documents.
- Bring numbers.
- Bring parliamentary arguments.
- Bring policy alternatives.
But standing on a stage, mimicking the Prime Minister’s gestures and turning a foreign leader into the punchline is not an alternative government.
It is political performance.
And India deserves better.
The problem with ‘dirty politics’
There is a broader pattern here that has become difficult to ignore.
Gandhi’s political rhetoric has frequently attempted to personalise every contest around PM Modi himself. The Prime Minister becomes the villain, the “panauti”, the “Gabbar”, the object of ridicule and the target of increasingly theatrical attacks.
Meanwhile, the actual political debate gets pushed into the background.
That is precisely where the Opposition should be strongest.
A democracy needs an Opposition that is dangerous to a government intellectually, not merely noisy politically. An effective Opposition should force the government to answer difficult questions.
Instead, too often, Gandhi’s political messaging appears to begin with a question far simpler:
- How can we make PM Modi the joke of the day?
- That may energise a rally crowd.
- It does not necessarily convince the country.
- Attacking PM Modi is legitimate. Insulting the office is another matter
- Nobody is suggesting that PM Modi should be beyond criticism.
He is the Prime Minister of India. His government should face relentless scrutiny. His decisions should be questioned. His policies should be challenged. His political record should be debated.
But there is a crucial distinction between attacking a Prime Minister’s record and attempting to demean the person occupying the office.
The Prime Minister represents an elected government and, through that government, a mandate secured from millions of Indian voters.
When Gandhi repeatedly turns PM Modi into a personal object of ridicule, he risks reducing politics to something profoundly unhealthy:
If PM Modi is humiliated, we have won.
That is not how a mature democracy functions.
You defeat a political opponent through arguments, elections and public persuasion—not by making the Prime Minister of India the butt of increasingly personal jokes.
The irony of the ‘high ground’
There is another uncomfortable irony.
Gandhi frequently presents himself as fighting for constitutional values, democratic institutions and a more dignified political culture.
But constitutional democracy is not merely about invoking the Constitution from a podium.
It is also about respecting institutions, respecting political opponents and understanding the weight of public office.
The Leader of the Opposition has enormous freedom to criticise the Prime Minister.
That freedom comes with an equally enormous responsibility.
The higher the office, the higher the standard expected from the person occupying it.
India needs an Opposition, not a heckler
Rahul Gandhi has every democratic right to oppose PM Modi. He has every right to say PM Modi is wrong. He has every right to argue that PM Modi’s foreign policy has failed.
But if he wants Indians to take him seriously, he must demonstrate that he can do something more than mock, sneer and personalise.
India is not short of political noise.
It is short of political seriousness.
And that is why Gandhi’s latest performance is more revealing than amusing.
When the Leader of the Opposition has the opportunity to explain how he would shape India’s foreign policy, he chose instead to imitate a hug. When he could dismantle PM Modi’s record with facts, he chose ridicule. When he could demonstrate statesmanship, he chose theatre.
That is not PM Modi’s problem.
It is Rahul Gandhi’s problem.
And perhaps the most damaging question for the Congress is not: “How low can Rahul Gandhi go in attacking PM Modi?”
It is: “How long can a party aspiring to govern India mistake personal ridicule for political strategy?”
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