Synopsis
The BJP has countered Sonia Gandhi’s criticism of the government’s Gaza policy, accusing the Congress of misinformation and vote bank politics. The ruling party highlighted India’s consistent stance, humanitarian aid, and UN support for a ceasefire. They emphasised Prime Minister Modi’s diplomatic skill in maintaining ties with all sides, contrasting it with the Congress’s alleged selective sympathy and failure to condemn Hamas.
PTINew Delhi, The BJP on Saturday hit back at the Congress over party leader Sonia Gandhi’s article on the Centre’s “silence and inaction” on the Gaza conflict, accusing her of trying to “misinform and conceal the real truth” about India’s position on the issue.
The ruling party asserted that India has consistently articulated its stand on the Gaza and Palestine issue, extended humanitarian aid, and voted in favour of United Nations resolutions calling for a ceasefire.
The remarks came after Rahul Gandhi, in an article published in The Indian Express on Saturday, alleged that the Modi government’s “stony silence and inaction on Israel’s Gaza genocide” are not just “morally reprehensible” but also “inexplicable from a national interest perspective”.
The Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson claimed that India has alienated itself from its historical allies in Palestine, Iran and the larger Middle East, distanced itself from global public opinion, and allowed Pakistan to occupy the space of a mediator.
Reacting to the article, BJP national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla alleged that it once again showed that for the Congress, “vote bank policy” takes precedence over “foreign policy”.
“Sonia Gandhi, through her article, is trying to misinform people and conceal the real truth. The fact is that India has not only articulated its position on Gaza and the Palestine issue on multiple occasions, but has also provided tangible humanitarian aid,” he said in a video statement.
Poonawalla said India’s stand is reflected in its support for UN resolutions on a ceasefire and noted that the highest civilian honour of Palestine has been conferred on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Highlighting the prime minister’s diplomatic outreach, he said Modi has been able to maintain ties with countries on opposing sides of global conflicts.
“It is Prime Minister Modi who has been able to navigate a fine line and talk to both Israel and Palestine at the same time, to America, Russia and Ukraine at the same time, and to the Western camp and Iran at the same time. This is not a policy of non-alignment but of all-alignment,” he said.
Highlighting that Modi has received more than 30 highest civilian honours from countries across the world, Poonawalla said a large number of them have come from Muslim-majority nations.
He alleged that Congress governments never developed relations with Israel due to the party’s “vote bank politics”.
“The problem is that the Congress always practises vote bank politics in foreign policy. In the name of vote bank politics, it never developed relations with Israel. The same party keeps speaking up, eulogising, platforming and sympathising with the cause of Hamas, but has not once categorically condemned the terror attacks on Israel,” he alleged.
The BJP spokesperson further alleged that while the Congress speaks up for Muslims in Gaza and Rafah, it remains silent on Hindus in Dhaka.
“This shows that even its foreign policy is guided by the calculus of vote bank politics,” he alleged.
In the article for The Indian Express, the Congress leader said the spirit of Indian nationhood demands that it speaks up for Palestinians whose children have been so brutally targeted and the calculus of national interest demands that India respond to the global public opinion against the Israeli regime’s genocidal actions in Gaza and its “brutal displacement and dispossession of lakhs of Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank”.
