Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi challenged Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday to an open debate on national security and foreign influence, escalating a fierce political war triggered by Modi's characterization of political opponents as "Dimagi Naxals" before armed troops in Bastar.
The clash erupted twenty-four hours after the Prime Minister celebrated Diwali with Central Reserve Police Force personnel at a frontline camp in southern Chhattisgarh. Addressing the jawans, Modi asserted that while state forces had cleared armed Maoists from forest redoubts, ideological subversives had penetrated established political organizations. "Dimagi Naxals have infiltrated several political parties and organisations and are instigating people against the Constitution and democracy," Modi said. "We must identify and defeat such elements and secure the country."
Gandhi hit back immediately.
Posting a direct message to the CRPF on social platform X, the Congress leader claimed the rank and file rejected the Prime Minister's speech. "Dear @crpfindia, Your faces said it all: you didn't buy the PM's lies," Gandhi wrote. He threw down a challenge: "He called us Naxals. My challenge stands. Let him debate me on who is anti-national and who is controlled by foreign forces. Any time, any place. My guarantee: after the debate, the PM won't have the guts to stand in front of a single jawan again."
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party mounted a swift counter-offensive, pointing to three decades of bloodshed in the Red Corridor to reject Gandhi's posture. BJP national spokesperson Tuhin Sinha accused earlier Congress administrations of deadly paralysis, contrasting past ambush massacres with recent security records.
"Rahul Gandhi ji, 719 CRPF jawans lost their lives in Naxal attacks between 1987-2025, including 74 jawans who lost their lives on one single night on April 6, 2010," Sinha said. "The casualty came down to zero in the last one year." Sinha demanded to know whether Gandhi had accounted for the grief of fallen soldiers' families before attacking the government's counter-insurgency doctrine.
Official paramilitary deployment records corroborate the operational shift. CRPF Director General G P Singh confirmed that the internal security force recorded zero operational deaths across the initial six months of 2026. Singh noted this milestone arrived despite sustained, intensified tactical maneuvers across volatile combat theatres, setting up a fierce parliamentary confrontation ahead of the upcoming legislative session.