'Mother' of mud-slinging: How BJP-Cong jibes on each other ended as 'Yo Mama' trash-talk

There is rarely a time in Indian politics when BJP and Congress leaders are not criticising each other or making angry remarks against each other. People have become so used to the usual BJP-Congress bickering that it usually evokes yawns. But when this political row turns into an ugly ‘Yo Mama’ trash-talk in which leaders from both sides make personal remarks on the mother of the other party’s leader, things probably cross the Laxman rekha of minimal etiquette. It all started when Prime Minister Narendra Modi took a dig at Congress when he was addressing the Indian community in California, saying that it didn’t take much for allegations to come up against some leader’s son or ‘damaad’ (son-in-law). The Congress, as expected, was outraged and responded against the PM’s remark by asking him why he doesn’t take care of his mother. As if the mud-slinging couldn’t get any worse, an angry and intense MJ Akbar (BJP spokesperson) held a press conference in which he made a remark on the ‘mother’ in Congress and said that it was her ‘doting behaviour’ which had turned Rahul Gandhi into the spoilt child of Indian politics. Here is how this petty tu-tu-main-main between BJP and Congress unfolded: