DM Monitoring
New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had to express regret in parliament in 2017 for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s false accusation that Manmohan Singh, Hamid Ansari and some top retired military officials and bureaucrats were conspiring with Pakistan to destabilise him and make Ahmed Patel the chief minister of Gujarat. Modi hasn’t changed his behaviour even after embarrassing his party, repeating a similar charge about the partnership of the Congress with Pakistan, which he said was eager to install Rahul Gandhi as the Prime Minister of India.
Narendra Modi has shown a tendency to drag Muslims and Pakistan into the electoral discourse. This time around he has said that there is a partnership between the Congress party and Pakistan.
Addressing a public meeting in Gujarat’s Anand on Thursday, May 2, Modi said (as quoted by a section of the media), “Yahan Congress mar rahi hai, aur wahan Pakistan ro raha hai. Aapko pata chala hoga ki Congress ke liye Pakistani neta dua kar rahe hain. Shehzade ko pradhanmantri banane ke liye Pakistan utawala hai. Aur hum to jaante hi hain ki Congress Pakistan ka mureed hai. Pakistan aur Congress ki yah partnership ab puri tarah expose ho gai hai (Congress is dying here and Pakistan is crying there. You must have come to know that a Pakistani leader is praying for Congress. Pakistan is eager to make Rahul Gandhi the prime minister. And we all know Congress is a fan of Pakistan. This partnership of Congress and Pakistan has been completely exposed now).”
Modi did not provide any evidence of the Congress-Pakistan partnership he alleged except for referring to the prayer by a Pakistani leader. Pakistan’s leader Chowdhary Fawad Hussain had praised Rahul Gandhi and posted a video on a social media platform. The BJP’s IT Cell head Amit Malviya grabbed the opportunity saying, “From a manifesto that has imprints of the Muslim league to a ringing endorsement, from across the border, Congress’s dalliance with Pakistan can’t get more obvious.” Many other BJP leaders expressed similar views. But the Prime Minister accusing the Congress of having a nexus with Pakistan has an entirely different meaning.
Facts tell an entirely different story: Congress prime minister Manmohan Singh did not visit Pakistan even once during his 10-year tenure. But Modi not only invited Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif to his swearing-in ceremony in 2014, he stunned the nation by landing in Pakistan on an unscheduled visit in 2015. Breaking all protocol, he visited the residence of Nawaz Sharif and the BJP hailed the gesture.
It was also under Modi that Pakistan’s notorious Intelligence agency ISI was allowed to visit Pathankot Air Force base for inspection after the terror attack there.
This move was condemned by security experts and strategic affairs commentators.
In 2017, in the course of the campaign for the assembly election in Gujarat, Modi again shocked the world by making a wild and unsubstantiated allegation of a conspiracy hatched by his opponents with the help of Pakistan to interfere in India’s internal affairs. Though this bizarre intervention might have helped Modi to snatch a crucial edge in a tightly contested election, the Congress kicked up a major ruckus in Parliament, disrupting the session held soon after the Gujarat election.
After several days of impasse, the Congress and the government reached a deal to restore normalcy in Parliament. As part of the deal, leader of the BJP in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley said on the floor of the House that the Prime Minister’s statement “did not question, nor meant to question the commitment to this nation of either former PM Manmohan Singh or former Vice President Hamid Ansari”. Jaitley said, “Any such perception (that Modi’s speech questioned Singh’s commitment to India) is erroneous, we hold these leaders in high esteem, as well as their commitment to India.” The Congress had demanded an apology from the Prime Minister but he didn’t demonstrate the moral courage to express regret for his mistake, instead making his party to do the humiliating job.
It was, however, Modi himself who had made the outrageous allegation. He had said at a rally, “Across the media yesterday there was a discussion…that at Mani Shankar Aiyar’s house…Pakistan’s high commissioner, Pakistan’s former foreign minister, India’s former Vice President, and India’s former Prime Minister…Manmohan Singh…they had a meeting at Mani Shankar’s house. The meeting lasted three hours. And the next day, this Mani Shankar called Modi ‘neech’. It is a serious matter… that Pakistan … it’s a sensitive issue… at this time what is the reason to have such a secret meeting with the Pakistan high commissioner? And while elections are on in Gujarat, what is the reason for this type of secret meeting? The second matter, Pakistan’s former Director General of Army, Arshad Rafiq, he says this, that to make Ahmed Patel Gujarat’s chief minister, we should do a contract. That Pakistan’s retired Army chief should interfere in Gujarat’s election, that a meeting of Pakistani people should be held at Mani Shankar’s place, and the day after the meeting Gujarat is insulted… Modi is insulted… All these matters raise questions, do they not; they cause concern, do they not?”
India’s former Army chief Deepak Kapoor was also present at the meeting with Pakistani officials at Aiyar’s residence. In the normal course, a first information report (FIR) should have been registered against all those who were present at the meeting and hatched a conspiracy with Pakistani officials. But the BJP has to issue a clarification. Modi had made an irresponsible statement during the Uttar Pradesh election, suggesting Pakistani involvement in a train accident in Gonda in which 150 people were killed.
The government should have taken firm administrative and diplomatic action if Pakistan exploded a train in India but Modi chose to make it an election issue, saying, “Agar seema paar ke dushman apna karobaar, seema ke us paar se chalana chahte hain, toh Gonda me zyada suraksha ki zarurat hai ki nahin. Agar wo log chun ke aayenge jo aise logon ki madad karenge, toe Gonda surakshit hoga kya? (If enemies conspire from across the border, shouldn’t there be extra caution, extra security in Gonda? Will Gonda be safe if those get elected who help the perpetrators of such crimes?”
