ISLAMABAD: After Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif congratulated Narendra Modi on his reelection as India’s prime minister, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif sought to dispel the impression of sending any “message of love” to the neighbouring country, which has a long history of strained ties with Pakistan.
“It is just a diplomatic compulsion to congratulate Modi on becoming the Indian PM,” Asif clarified while speaking on Geo News programme Capital Talk on Monday.
He added that Pakistan has not sent any “message of love” to Modi — the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader who was sworn in as India’s prime minister yesterday for a record-equalling third term.
Asif said that Pakistan would never forget that Modi is a “murderer of Muslims” in India. He recalled the felicitations sent by Modi to Shehbaz who took oath as the prime minister earlier this year.
Earlier in the day, Premier Shehbaz Sharif congratulated his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on tak-ing oath. Taking to his personal account on X, formerly Twitter, PM Shehbaz wrote: “Felicitations to @narendramodi on taking oath as the Prime Minister of India.”
Modi, who started as a publicist of the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideo-logical parent of his BJP, is only the second person after independence leader Jawaharlal Nehru to serve a third straight term as prime minister.
Modi, 73, secured the third term in elections that concluded on June 1 with the support of 14 regional parties in his BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), unlike in the previous two terms when his party won an outright majority.
The outcome is seen as a big setback to the popular leader as surveys and exit polls had predicted BJP would secure even more seats than in 2019.
In the same programme, Asif threw shade at the incarcerated Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan by saying that the former premier did deliver statements in the favour of outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
He added that soldiers of Pakistani armed forces were rendering sacrifices with their lives, on the oth-er hand, martyrs were being maligned on social media.
Modi, who started as a publicist of the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideo-logical parent of his BJP, is only the second person after independence leader Jawaharlal Nehru to serve a third straight term as prime minister.
Modi, 73, secured the third term in elections that concluded on June 1 with the support of 14 regional parties in his BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), unlike in the previous two terms when his party won an outright majority.
The outcome is seen as a big setback to the popular leader as surveys and exit polls had predicted BJP would secure even more seats than in 2019.
In the same programme, Asif threw shade at the incarcerated Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan by saying that the former premier did deliver statements in the favour of outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
He added that soldiers of Pakistani armed forces were rendering sacrifices with their lives, on the oth-er hand, martyrs were being maligned on social media. –Agencies
