Blacken Face, Shave Off Moustache: Congress on Back Foot as BJP Reminds of Poll Season Dares

A Congress leader has announced that he will blacken his face in Bhopal on Thursday after the loss in Madhya Pradesh.

Another Congress leader, who was a minister in Chhattisgarh, is being dared by the BJP to shave off his moustache as he had promised to if the Congress lost the polls. The BJP has even published his digitally altered photograph on social platform X to show how he would look without a moustache.

The first instance is creating some ripples in Madhya Pradesh. Dalit leader Phool Singh Baraiya has won the Bhander assembly seat in MP with a big margin of almost 82,000 votes but he had promised during the campaign that he would publicly blacken his face if the BJP crosses 50 seats. The BJP won the state with 163 seats and after taunts from BJP leaders, Baraiya has announced that he would stand true to his word and will publicly blacken his face before the Raj Bhawan in Bhopal on December 7 at 2pm.

This has led to concerns among some that Baraiya’s act would be an insult to a large section of society, including people who voted for him. The Azad Samaj Party (Kanshiram) has written an open letter, saying if someone should blacken their faces, it should be the top Congress leaders in the state and not Baraiya, or effigies of Digvijaya Singh would be burnt across the state by workers. A regional Congress leader blackened his face on Wednesday in solidarity with Baraiya, who has earlier been the state president of Mayawati’s BSP. Some are reaching Bhopal to join Baraiya.

The other case is the BJP daring 4-time MLA and former minister Amarjit Bhagat to shave off his moustache as he had promised if the Congress did not win in the state. Not only did Congress lose the state but Bhagat lost his seat, Sitapur, to a former commando of the CRPF Ramkumar Toppo who had joined the BJP. Now, the BJP has issued an AI-generated image on X showing how he will look without a moustache and local leaders are daring him to fulfil his vow immediately.