On way to the finish line, ‘khata-khat’, ‘taka-tak’, ‘tana-tan’, ‘safachat’

IT STARTED with Rahul Gandhi. Now, almost as “khata-khat (swiftly)” as the senior Congress leader implied an INDIA government would meet its promises, the word – along with its variations – has become the nom de guerre of this Lok Sabha election battle.

Rahul used the word for the first time at a rally in Rajasthan’s Anupgarh on April 11. Speaking of the Congress’s Mahalakshmi guarantee for women, Rahul said: “Hindustan ke har garib pariwar mein ek mahila ko Congress party ki sarkaar saal ka ek lakh rupya bank mein daal degi… Agar aap garib rekha ke neeche ho… rupaiya har mahina khata-khat, khata-khat aata rahega… Aur ek jhatke se hum Hindustan se ghareebi mita denge (The Congress party will give one woman in every poor family of India Rs 1 lakh… If you are below the poverty line… money will come monthly quickly, non-stop… And in one stroke, we would have eradicated poverty in India).”

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| Uttar Pradesh: Addressing a public rally in Varanasi, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi says, “We are doing to deposit lakhs of crores of rupees in the bank accounts of the poor in India. Under the Mahalakshmi scheme, a list will be prepared of the poor people in the… pic.twitter.com/H1mXwm2q8I

— ANI (@ANI) <a href=«https://twitter.com/ANI/status/1795437893441532172?ref_src=» https: class="" rel=«nofollow, noopener» target="_blank">May 28, 2024

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A month-and-a-half hence, in a long election campaign marked by continuous war of words, name calling and several Election Commission notices, the catchy “khata-khat”, its variations “fata-fat”, “taka-tak”, and the rhyming “safachat (wipeout)”