Katte ki sarkar: Is Modi's Rhyme a Veiled Shot at Nitish's Bihar?

A newspaper headline captured Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s words at a Bihar rally: “The people of Bihar do not want a katte ki sarkar (‘katta’ government) here.”

Modi loves a good rhyme, and his speechwriters oblige. In this effort, he weaved together words starting with the Hindi letter ‘ka’: ‘katta’ (country-made pistol), ‘krurta’ (cruelty), ‘katu-ta’ (bitterness), ‘ku-sanskar’ (bad culture) during his election rallies. When a fifth Hindi term eluded him, he tossed in the English “corruption.” He also slipped in ‘kushasan’—misgovernance—for good measure.

On the very same Friday, while Narendra Modi was saying this in his election speech in Aurangabad, almost at the same time in the capital Patna, an officer of a finance company was shot with a katta and injured, and ten lakh rupees were looted. The question is not just about the amount but about those two criminals who, riding on a bike with a katta, carried out this incident near a bank. It was not only one place where Modi used the K words.

‘Kattas’ are not just tools of robbery in Bihar; they are instruments of murder. Four months earlier, the world watched CCTV footage of gunmen strolling into a prominent private hospital on Patna’s Bailey Road, shooting a man dead, and walking out unhurried. Weeks before that, industrialist Gopal Khemka—once close to the BJP—was gunned down in the capital; police never confirmed whether a ‘katta’, another firearm, was used. Tragically, Khemka’s son had been murdered four years prior.

Just weeks ago in Gaya, four men with ‘kattas’ shot dead the son of a local BJP leader in broad daylight—again caught on camera. Aurangabad and Gaya fall under the same police commissionery. Modi may also recall the ‘katta’ fired at Dularchand Yadav, a supporter of a Jan Suraaj Party candidate, after a scuffle with the convoy of JD(U) strongman Anant Singh in Mokama. Dularchand was first shot at and then run over by a vehicle, which was a major poll-related murder in Bihar during this election.

These are just a few examples; otherwise, such incidents happen every day across Bihar. Therefore, when the Prime Minister used the phrase 'government of the katta', many scenes of kattas from Nitish Kumar's rule, especially the last two to three years, flashed before many eyes.

Senior BJP leader Narendra Modi mentioned ‘katta’ to strengthen the narrative of ‘jungle raj’ that he built. But looking at the incidents, the double-engine government in Bihar has failed to stop jungle raj-like events.

Nitish Kumar boasts that he eradicated crime from Bihar. Modi, meanwhile, keeps rattling off. In a political swipe, he accused the RJD of pressing a *katta* to Congress’s temple to snatch the chief minister candidacy.

On one hand, Nitish Kumar claims that he has eliminated crime from Bihar, while on the other, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is still using words like ‘katta’, ‘dunali’ (double-barrel gun), ‘firauti’ (ransom), and ‘rangdari’ (extortion). To give a political message, Modi is alleging that the RJD held a katta to the Congress's temple and even took the chief ministerial candidacy.

In this context, the question also arises: on the candidacy of the chief minister whom Modi had called his ‘darling CM’, whose katta is pressed where? Another senior BJP leader, Amit Shah, initially said that in the elections, NDA's face would be Nitish Kumar, but who becomes CM would be decided by the legislative party. When Nitish Kumar and Janata Dal United expressed anger over this, he changed his tune, but it is still not clear whether the ‘katta’ placed on Nitish Kumar's chief ministership has been removed or not.

In the context of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent ‘Katte ki Sarkar’ rhetoric, senior Congress leader Pawan Khera delivered a sharp, satirical counter on November 8, 2025. Speaking to reporters in Bihar, Khera quipped that Chief Minister Nitish Kumar should put a katta at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's kanpatti (temple/head) to assert himself as the undisputed NDA chief ministerial candidate. This was a direct inversion of Modi's allegation that the RJD had "held a katta to Congress's head" to force Tejashwi Yadav's nomination as the Mahagathbandhan's CM face.

Khera accused Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah of a ‘katta mentality,’ arguing it's unbecoming of leaders hailing from Mahatma Gandhi's Gujarat, where non-violence is a cultural bedrock. He pointed to the attack on Bihar BJP Deputy CM Vijay Kumar Sinha's convoy on polling day (November 6, 2025) as evidence of "goonda raj" under NDA rule, not the opposition.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge called Modi's ‘katta’ charge a ‘lie’ and ‘laughable.’ He sarcastically asked if Donald Trump had ‘put a katta on Modi's head’ during U.S. interactions, while rubbishing NDA victory claims by referencing their failed "400-plus" Lok Sabha prediction.

Anyway, Modi used the word ‘katta’ primarily to attack Congress, but his statement also draws people's attention to how the ‘katta’ culture is still flourishing in Bihar. Therefore, it can also be said that by mentioning ‘katta’, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is effectively putting Nitish Kumar's rule on trial.

In recent days, citing the National Crime Records Bureau, it has been reported that between 2015 and 2024, the number of crimes in Bihar increased by up to 80%. Leader of the Opposition Tejashwi Yadav has said several times that in the last 20 years in Bihar, nearly 70,000 people have been murdered.

Many people allege that the way Prime Minister Narendra Modi has gathered five 'k' words for Bihar, like the 'kakar' words of the Sikh community, it shows insensitivity towards the Sikh religion. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been criticised before for his language during elections.