BJP leaders are frothing at the mouth over Prime Minister Narendra Modi being branded a chor, insisting it is an abuse that should never be hurled at someone holding the highest elected office in the country. But this is not the first time that a Prime Minister has been called a thief.

Rajiv Gandhi was called a chor thirty years ago by the very people who are today in a tizzy. The Congress, however, never made an issue of it.

“Gali gali me shor hai, Rajiv Gandhi chor hai” was the favourite election slogan of the Opposition, of which the BJP was very much a part, during the 1989 parliamentary election. Rajiv Gandhi was then the Prime Minister who had been elected with a landslide majority of 414 seats out of a total of 541, a tally which even the Modi wave of 2014 could not come close to, let alone beat. If the BJP claims that Modi is the most popular Prime Minister in India’s history and therefore cannot be called a chor, Rajiv Gandhi had become Prime Minister in 1984 having won a vote share of 49.10 per cent, while Modi received 31.3 per cent vote share in 2014.

The same people who are today objecting to the Congress’s “chowkidar chor hai” election campaign were shouting “Rajiv Gandhi chor hai” the loudest three decades ago. To borrow from yesteryear Bollywood star and former BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha’s favourite election slogan on the hypocrisy of his erstwhile party, “tum karo to raasleela, aur hum kare to character dheela” (If you do it, it is divine, but if we do it, it is villainous).

This is not the only similarity that the 1989 election has with the current polls. Thirty years ago the Opposition had ganged up against the Congress, led by Janata Dal founder VP Singh, to defeat Rajiv. This time the Opposition has formed alliances against the BJP to remove Modi.

Modi calls the Opposition a “mahamilawat khichdi” that will provide a weak government which cannot last. In 1989 the Congress had dismissed the Opposition as a front with “more leaders than workers” that would not be able to provide a stable government. Interestingly, the disparate group of Opposition and regional parties did form the National Front government, which only lasted for a year and was brought down by the BJP withdrawing its support.

Smriti Irani, BJP candidate for Amethi, bemoans the lack of development and criticises Rahul Gandhi for neglecting his constituency, but three decades ago the same Gandhi family was accused of unduly pampering Amethi and Rae Bareli. Amethi’s reputation as an “oasis of development” in a largely backward state had spread far and wide. Its smooth roads, fertile fields, educational institutions, industrial hubs were a talking point tinged with envy even in more developed states such as Gujarat and Maharashtra.