From Salman Khan's Tubelight to Rahul Gandhi's 'Fuse Light': A BJP Twist Amid Polls

The political slugfest between Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress over the ‘panauti’ barb at Prime Minister Narendra Modi escalated into a poster war, with the saffron party referring to Rahul Gandhi as a ‘fuse tubelight’ in the latest dig.

The BJP’s poster followed a similar one released by Congress, referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi as ‘Panauti-e-Azam’, a term associated with bad luck.

Taking to X, BJP on Friday shared a poster that is a parody of the Salman Khan starrer 2017 film ‘Tubelight’, with a caption reading, ‘Fuse Tubelight’.

The poster has Rahul Gandhi’s face morphed onto Khan’s, with bold text reading “Made in China” and “Congress Presents Rahul Gandhi in and as tubelight.”

This is not the first time the BJP has referred to Gandhi as ‘Tubelight’, a term associated with being a slow learner. Earlier in 2020, PM Modi compared Gandhi with a ‘tubelight’, after the Congress leader rose to intervene PM’s reply to the Motion of Thanks to President’s speech in Lok Sabha.

“I was speaking for the last 30-40 minutes but it took this long for the current to reach there. Many tubelights are like this,” PM Narendra Modi had said.

The word ‘pappu’, that stuck to Rahul Gandhi over the years, was also first used by BJP for the Congress leader. The barb stuck with Gandhi for so long that he himself began making fun of the moniker.

The war of words between Congress and BJP started after Gandhi’s untasteful “PM means Panauti Modi” remark after India lost against Australia in the ICC Men’s World Cup Final last week,  insinuating that PM Modi brings bad luck.