‘Alu Se Sona’ jibe returns: Himanta mocks Congress with ‘fear-measuring machine’ taunt ahead of Delhi rally

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on October 31 took a swipe at the Congress over its repeated charge that political leaders are afraid, jokingly asking the party to share the technology behind its alleged “fear-measuring machine”.

His remarks came a day before the INDIA bloc’s proposed rally at Ramlila Maidan in Delhi against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar.

“Whenever Congress runs out of logic and arguments, they come up with their favourite tweet — ‘Yeh Darr Gaye’ (He is scared),” Sarma wrote in a post on X.

Addressing Congress leaders as his “dear friends”, the Assam Chief Minister asked what equipment the party used to measure fear.

“Is it the famous ‘Alu se sona’ (from potato to gold) machine or have you invented something new? Please share the technology with us too, so we can also measure ‘who is scared and how much’,” he added.

Sarma also shared an AI-generated image alongside the post. The satirical illustration depicts a factory producing golden busts of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi using potatoes as raw material, with a separate meter designed to measure fear.

The jibe came amid a fresh confrontation between the Congress-led INDIA bloc and the Election Commission over the SIR exercise and the functioning of the poll panel.

On Saturday, the INDIA bloc held a symbolic “public impeachment” of CEC Gyanesh Kumar, alleging that the right to vote was under threat and accusing the Election Commission of functioning at the behest of the Narendra Modi government.

The proposed rally at Ramlila Maidan on Sunday is expected to bring the Opposition’s campaign against the SIR exercise and the CEC into sharper focus.