Modi Celebrates Congress’s Zero, Fadnavis Deletes His Post as Nagpur Bites Back
Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended Ramleela celebrations in New Delhi (Image Modi on X)
By AMIT KUMAR
From Modi’s premature celebrations to Rekha Gupta’s Aryabhatta meme and Devendra Fadnavis’s disappearing X post, the Congress zero-show taunt became a political comedy of errors.
New Delhi, October 29, 2026 — The BJP’s political victory party had apparently begun before the counting was complete. Prime Minister Narendra Modi joined the early celebrations over the Congress allegedly drawing a blank in the MLC elections. Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta brought Aryabhatta into the political arena to underline the supposed arithmetic of Congress’s humiliation. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis joined the chorus, only to discover that political arithmetic can be rather unforgiving when the results refuse to follow the script.
Then came Nagpur.
Congress won the Nagpur seat, a result with an extra sting because Union minister Nitin Gadkari had represented the constituency for 24 years. Suddenly, the arithmetic that had looked so entertaining from the BJP’s side acquired an inconvenient footnote. Fadnavis deleted his X post, turning a victory lap into a digital disappearing act.
The power of Modi’s narrative framing was extraordinary: Google AI termed a headline that summed up stiff contest in Uttar Pradesh as the BJP’s six seats win was almost matched by the SP’s five “factually incorrect”, saying that “the actual story is Congress scoring zero in polls for 28 MLC seats.” Television and digital media went top with Modi’s narrative, that the Congress cann’t win even on ballots.
The episode offered a useful lesson in the difference between celebrating a trend and declaring the final result. In politics, a premature boast is not merely a statement; it is a hostage to fortune. And social media has an excellent memory for yesterday’s triumphalism.
Rekha Gupta’s Arya Bhatta reference was particularly unfortunate in hindsight. Mathematics is a wonderful discipline, but it works best when all the numbers are in. Zero can be a powerful figure in an election headline, a meme or a taunt. It is less reliable as a political obituary before the counting has run its course.
Meanwhile, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav alleged that the delay in announcing the Varanasi result was intended to spare Modi embarrassment. Modi represents Varanasi in the Lok Sabha. The allegation added another layer of drama to an already entertaining electoral spectacle.
The larger irony is hard to miss. A party that prides itself on electoral machinery, messaging discipline and political communication found itself confronting the perils of celebrating too early. Congress, often portrayed as an opposition struggling to get its arithmetic right, secured a win in Nagpur that complicated the BJP’s victory narrative.
There is a difference between winning an election and winning the meme war. The BJP appeared to have secured the second before the first was fully settled. Then Nagpur intervened, and the delete button became part of the political commentary.
Salt in quintals was dumped on wound of the BJP, for Nagpur is also the home city of Fadnavis and the headquarters of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), which is the big daddy of the BJP.
The moral is simple: never confuse a counting-room snapshot with the final verdict. Numbers deserve respect, even when they are being used to mock your opponents.
(This is an opinion piece. Views expressed are the author’s own.)
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