The Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh has come out hard against his state’s Congress chief, Ajay Rai, after a clip of him making unseemly comments at Prime Minister Narendra Modi went viral. “Indecent, unparliamentary and inexcusable,” were the words used to describe it. The whole thing, which came to a head on Friday, May 22, 2026, has only made the political lines in the sand starker as we head into the next round of campaigning in the state.
There’s more to this than just a few choice words. It’s a matter of who holds the narrative in a place like this. You have the BJP painting this as a character issue for the Congress, and the other side under pressure to put some context to Rai’s tone.
How the controversy erupted
It all started in Mahoba. Rai was with a NEET student who had been through a ordeal – 16 days of being held, tortured and sexually assaulted before the police could get to her. While he was with some locals and party workers, he didn’t mince words when it came to the BJP in New Delhi and here in UP.
You can see in the clip that’s been shared around how he put the prime minister in the crosshairs for the state of the economy and what he sees as a turn of the shoulder to people at home. He even quipped, ‘people are going without while Modi is off making reels and handing out chocolates in foreign lands’. And there was some language levelled at Shashank Singh, the SP of Mahoba, that was hardly fit for print.
Yogi Adityanath’s charge
Yogi Adityanath didn’t hold back. “Ajay Rai’s way of talking shows the kind of depravity you find in the Congress. It is indecent, unparliamentary and inexcusable,” he said, making a point of where one should draw the line between a critique and an insult.
He was speaking in response to the video of Rai having a go at both the PM and a top cop. To the CM, this isn’t a one-off; it’s a symptom of something wrong in the Congress.
Wider BJP response
Rakesh Tripathi of the BJP was in agreement. “They’ve overstepped,” he said of the Congress. “First you had Rahul Gandhi, now it’s Ajay Rai. They seem to be in a race to see who can be the most abusive to the prime minister.”
Then you have Amit Malviya, who pointed to the difference in their ways. He reminded everyone that the PM had wished Rai well from hospital earlier in the month. In his view, what we are seeing now is the Congress’s culture on display.
What Ajay Rai alleged
For his part, Rai says the BJP is not doing its job for the people in UP or the country. He makes a link to how people are living and how they are being governed, saying the everyday stuff is being put aside for the sake of looking good on the world stage.
He also brought up old scores from the 2014 Varanasi election, saying there were moves to put pressure on him then. The video of his less-than-pleasant remarks was put on camera as he was waving to a crowd to say goodbye.
Here is a rundown of the key points:
– A video out of Mahoba has set things off
– CM Yogi has no time for what he called indecent and inexcusable talk
– It comes in the wake of a case where a NEET aspirant was taken for 16 days
– The BJP is of the opinion that the Congress has let the level of discourse drop
– Tensions are running high before the state campaign gets under way
Why this matters in Uttar Pradesh
UP is where the mood for the rest of the country is often made. What is said about a prime minister here can change the rules of engagement. The BJP has found a cause to rally behind. For the Congress, it is a risk to their standing as they try to make headway in the state.
The ruling party has already made a show of it, with leaders on record saying the Congress has left civility behind. That kind of messaging can move the needle with volunteers and voters alike in the coming weeks.
What comes next
We are in for a tussle in UP. The BJP will be on the warpath with the video and the CM’s censure in hand, and the Congress will have to answer for its own.
With the campaign calendar in front of us, this may well dictate how they make their plays. It is too early to tell if it will alter what voters care about, but the argument over where to stop in politics has certainly been ratcheted up.
