BJP-Cong spar over Tharoor’s remarks
Berating the Congress over its senior leader Shashi Tharoor’s remarks at the recent Lahore Think Fest, where he criticised the Indian government’s handling of the Covid-19 situation, “bigotry and prejudice” against Muslims and “problem with northeast citizens who look different,” the BJP on Sunday said the Thiruvananthpuram MP had “demeaned and discredited’ India at a platform in Pakistan.
Describing Tharoor’s virtual address as a Congress “debut rally” in Pakistan, the BJP asked whether Congress leader Rahul Gandhi intends to contest elections in Pakistan. It said that henceforth, the Congress leader should be called “Rahul Lahori.”
Hitting back, the Congress said that the BJP had always responded to substance and facts with “jumlebaazi (rhetoric)” and that such reactions from the ruling party “ridicule” the debate and “diminish us as a democracy.”
Citing Congress leaders including Rahul Gandhi’s earlier statement on nullification of Article 370, P. Chidambaram’s tweet on restoration of Article
370, Mani Shankar Aiyar’s statement during a Pakistani TV debate in
2015 and Salman Khurshid’s remarks at an event in Islamabad, BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra said, “We want to ask andhi whether he is planning to contest from Pakistan.”
SHASHI THAROOR at the recent Lahore Think Fest criticised the Indian government’s handling of the Covid-19 situation, “bigotry and prejudice” against Muslims and “problem with northeast citizens who look different”.
“...Tharoor said Gandhi should get credit which he is not getting in India or by the Indian media but seems he is getting much affection from Pakistan.. Tharoor has already held the debut rally(of Congress) there (Pakistan),” Dr Patra said. He questioned the need to discuss Indians from the northeast at a Pakistani forum while adding that “there is no country in this world as democratic and just as India.”
Taking on the Congress over Thaoor’s remarks on Indian Muslims, Patra asked did the Congress leader or its leadership ever dare to ask how minorities are treated in Pakistan and how Hindus, Christians, Buddhists and Sikhs are forcefully converted or killed.
Hitting back, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said, “The BJP has always responded to substance and pointed facts with ‘jumlebaazi’. The BJP has always believed in rhetoric, not substance. Yes, it does sometimes catch you by the eyeballs or the earbuds when you hear it, but, within seconds, logic takes over and tells you how empty a rhetoric the BJP is indulging in.”