Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday seized on Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s recent criticism of the party-run government in Karnataka for making unrealistic poll pledges, launching a vigorous attack on the “Congress-sponsored culture of fake promises”.

Modi made a series of posts on X as Kharge’s comments at a public event in Bengaluru on Thursday created a flutter, with BJP leaders lapping it up to demand an apology from the Congress.

“The Congress is realising the hard way that making unreal promises is easy but implementing them properly is tough or impossible. Campaign after campaign they promise things to the people, which they also know they will never be able to deliver,” Modi said. “Now, they (Cong) stand badly exposed in front of the people,” he said, adding the hashtag “FakePromisesOfCongress”.

At an event to observe the death anniversary of Indira Gandhi on Thursday, Kharge had publicly pulled up the party’s Karnataka leadership after deputy chief minister D.K. Shivakumar said that the state government would revisit the “Shakti scheme” offering free bus rides to women.

“Looking at Karnataka’s five guarantees, we made a promise of five guarantees in (poll-bound) Maharashtra. Today you mentioned that you would drop one of the guarantees,” Kharge said at the event in Bengaluru.

“I have advised the Maharashtra Congress leaders not to keep making promises of 5, 6, 10 or 20 schemes. Instead, make promises that align with your budget. Making promises without considering the budget could lead to bankruptcy,” Kharge added, stressing that making unrealistic pledges could bring disrepute and invite financial restrictions.

As BJP leaders in Karnataka and Delhi seized on Kharge’s censure, Modi joined in on Friday evening, seeking to squeeze political mileage with polls scheduled in two key states, Maharashtra and Jharkhand, this month.

Modi and the BJP did not relent even as the Congress government in Karnataka tried to control the damage, clarifying that the scheme offering free bus rides to women would not be axed. Modi slammed the Congress in Karnataka, accusing the party of being busy with “intra-party politics and loot” and painting a gloomy picture of other Congress-ruled states too.

“In Himachal Pradesh, salaries of government workers are not paid on time. In Telangana, farmers are waiting for the waiver they had been promised. Previously, in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan they promised certain allowances which were never implemented for five years. There are numerous such examples of how the Congress works,” Modi wrote on X.

He urged people to be “vigilant against the Congress-sponsored culture of fake promises” and used the example of the BJP’s return for a third consecutive term at the Centre as a rejection of the Congress’s “lies”.

“The people of the country will have to be vigilant against the Congress-sponsored culture of fake promises. We saw recently how the people of Haryana rejected their lies and preferred a government that is stable, progress-oriented and action-driven,” Modi said.

Kharge responded some hours later, addressing Modi directly on X and reminding him of his “jumlas” — a word made common in India’s political lexicon by Union home minister Amit Shah when he termed the ₹15-lakh-in-every-account promise made by Modi during the 2014 election campaign as “chunaavi jumla (electoral rhetoric)”.

Titled “Lies, deceit, fakery, loot and publicity are the 5 adjectives which best describe your govt”, Kharge said in a long post: “Your drumbeating regarding a 100-day plan was a cheap PR stunt.... The ‘B’ in BJP stands for betrayal, while the ‘J’ stands for jumla.”

He listed some of the unfulfilled promises of Modi, including two crore jobs per year, reining in price rise, “achchhe din”, zero corruption, “sabka saath, sabka vikas”, and doubling farmers’ income by 2022. “Modiji,before finger-pointing,please note that Modi Ki Guarantee is a cruel joke on 140 crore Indians”.