# Kharge takes dig at Amit Shah, says he was a child when I became MLA 2026-08-17T16:41:40+00:00 | Politics | Indian Opinion Desk Corroboration: 1 independent outlet (2 source reports) Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Monday targeted Union home minister Amit Shah at a party event in Goa, saying he was a child when Kharge first became an MLA and that Shah should not teach patriotism to Congress leaders. 'When I became an MLA for the first time, Amit Shah was a child, and today he is teaching us patriotism,' Kharge said, according to aajtak.in. He added that BJP leaders often comment against former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, and that Congress leaders fought for India's freedom while the BJP and its predecessors did not. In a post on X, Kharge wrote that BJP is 'anti-India' and 'anti-religion', accusing its leaders of dividing the country and spreading hatred. He also called the BJP a 'government of thieves' that topples other parties by buying MLAs. Separately, at the Goa event, the Congress sang only the first two stanzas of the national song Vande Mataram, reigniting a political controversy. A complaint has been filed with Delhi police against Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi over the issue. ## Coverage - aajtak.in - aajtak.in (2) This story was synthesised by AI from the 2 sources linked above. Tags: Amit Shah, BJP, Congress, Goa, Mallikarjun Kharge, Vande Mataram Canonical: https://indianopinion.org/kharge-takes-dig-at-amit-shah-says-he-was-a-child-when-i-became-mla/ License: Summary and commentary (c) Indian Opinion, reusable with attribution. Facts belong to the linked sources. Cite: https://indianopinion.org/kharge-takes-dig-at-amit-shah-says-he-was-a-child-when-i-became-mla/#story-in-brief Review state: restored archive article, accurate at time of publication, not offered to search indexes. How this brief was made: an AI model read the reports linked above and wrote this summary and analysis, which were published automatically. Published briefs are sampled every hour by an automated quality check; the editor verifies its findings and approves corrections, and corrected briefs carry a dated correction line. Stance labels are editorial classifications of how each outlet framed this story, assigned by the same model, not ratings of the outlets. We do no original reporting. Methodology: https://indianopinion.org/ai-use-policy/