The prime minister’s grey silence on the ‘C word’ — China and its border encroachments — is well-known. But in the rising heat of the elections, Narendra Modi has now uttered, somewhat unexpectedly and for the very first time in public, the ‘A word’, which is often an allusion to the industrialist duo of Adani-Ambani. At an election rally in Telangana, Mr Modi first asked why the Congress’s “shehzada” — his preferred nomenclature for Rahul Gandhi — had stopped his diatribes against the two leading industrialists of the country after being vocal about the prime minister’s alleged cosy ties with them for years. He then went to answer the rhetorical question by suggesting that Mr Gandhi’s silence was the result of a substantial pay-off to the Congress by the businessmen.

Mr Modi, as is his wont, was far from the truth. Mr Gandhi has been steadfast in his allegations of Mr Modi’s seeming indulgence in crony capitalism which, the Congress leader has repeatedly argued during his election speeches, is a manifestation of inequality in India. But what is more instructive in this instance is the speculation that has arisen and the inferences that are being drawn because of Mr Modi’s unexpected remark. For example, there are whispers that Mr Modi’s rhetorical jibe has left even some in the Bharatiya Janata Party puzzled. This puzzlement, if true, is not without reason. There has been a perceived lack of substance when it comes to Mr Modi’s finger-pointing. The Congress, of course, remains his principal target of bilious admonishment but even here, the charges — from the Congress planning to redistribute public wealth to one religious minority to the Grand Old Party conspiring to turn the Ram temple into a hospital — have either been imaginary or insubstantial. In fact, there is a line of thought that suggests that the absence of a distinct ‘wave’ in his favour — as was the case in 2019 — has made Mr Modi’s tone shriller. The prime minister’s reference to the two industrialists paying money to his opponent is bound to set tongues wagging about a possible acknowledgement of a shift in the direction of the poll winds: in other words, he seems to have scored an own goal in his attempt to adhere to the art of deflection. Mr Modi’s remark, however, reiterates an adage: that politics is shorn of permanent friends or foes. Yesterday’s patron — industrialist or otherwise — could well be today’s antagonist.