Row over Congress posters showing PM Narendra Modi as Mahishasur, Raavan

The Congress party landed itself in the midst of a controversy with posters depicting Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra as Goddess Durga, slaying Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Mahishasur demon' avatar, surfacing across Patna ahead of its much-hyped Jan Akanksha rally on Sunday.

In yet another poster, PM Modi has been shown as the 10-faced evil Raavan, to Congress president Rahul Gandhi's Lord Ram avatar.

The BJP leaders objected to the depiction of a Prime Minister as a demon even as senior Congress leaders said the party had nothing to do with the poster.

"This could be a ploy of our enemies. We don't know who has put the posters," said Bihar PCC chief Madan Mohan Jha. Congress MLC Prem Chandra Mishra reiterated that the party had not put any such posters and it was a matter of investigation as to who put it and why.

The posters, in which Vadra is in Durga avatar slaying Modi-faced-Mahishasur, also depicts Rahul Gandhi as Lord Shiva. It exhorts people to participate in February 3 rally at Patna's Gandhi Maidan and says, "Rahul-Priyanka ka sapna, khushhaal ho desh apna" (Rahul and Priyanka's dream is to create a prosperous nation).

BJP state vice-president and former Bihar minister Samrat Choudhary said, "It is their mental bankruptcy as they do not want others to serve the country. It is sad and unfortunate that they are morphing pictures of the country's PM. Everyone has the right to hold rallies but such tactics of editing others' pictures can be done only by mentally imbalanced people."

Earlier, Congress president Rahul Gandhi was shown as Lord Ram in some of the rally posters that said: "Ve Ram Naam Japte Rahe, Tum Bankar Ram Jiyo re", following which a case was lodged against Gandhi and three others in a Patna court for "hurting religious sentiments."

Angered over the posters which virtually cover entire Patna, unidentified miscreants went on a rampage on Saturday and tore several of them, though Congress workers restored some of them.

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• BJP Bihar vice-chief Samrat Choudhary said, “It is their mental bankruptcy as they do not want others to serve the country. 
• A case was lodged against Rahul Gandhi, 3 others in a Patna court for “hurting religious sentiments” in a similar case earlier.