Congress on Friday distanced itself from that the comments of veteran party leader Mani Shankar Aiyar that India should “respect” Pakistan because it has “atom bomb”, which the party dubbed as an old interview that went viral online and sparked controversy.
While disagreeing totally with the remarks made by Aiyar some months ago, the party said his views did not represent the party’s official stand and also questioned an old interview of External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on China.
In a post on X, Congress media and publicity department chairman Pawan Khera said, “Indian National Congress dissociates itself completely from and disagrees totally with some remarks made by Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyar few months back which have been revived today by the BJP in its attempt to deflect attention from Prime Minister Modi’s daily goof ups. Mr Aiyer does not speak for the party in any capacity whatsoever.”
Highlighting the role of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Khera said, “The Indian National Congress and indeed the entire nation recalls with pride that in December 1971 Pakistan was broken and an independent Bangladesh emerged thanks to Indira Gandhi’s decisive and determined leadership and the valour of our armed forces.”
He also said that almost exactly 50 years ago on May 18, 1974 under the leadership of Indiraji, “India’s nuclear capability was announced to the world”.
“The Indian National Congress has always believed that our decision making should be guided by supreme national interest.
And if old videos are to be used, here is a not so old video where the External Affairs Minister is publicly advising India to be afraid of China,” he said attaching the link of Jaishankar interview.
The fresh controversy erupted after a video of Aiyar went viral on social media in which he aas heard saying that the government can talk tough to Islamabad if it wants to, but if it doesn’t respect the neighbouring country, it may have to pay a heavy price.
“They have atom bombs. We have them too, but if a ‘madman’ decides to drop a bomb on Lahore, it won’t take 8 seconds for the radiation to reach Amritsar,” he warned.
“If we respect them, they will remain peaceful. But if we snub them, what happens if a ‘madman’ comes up and decides to launch bombs [at India]?” Aiyar was seen asking in thr video.
He also questioned the Narendra Modi’s government failure to improve the relation between the two nation and said, “In order to become the ‘vishwaguru’, no matter how serious our issues with Pakistan are, we have to show that we are working hard to resolve them. But in the last 10 years, there has been no hard work [to this end].”
Aiyar is the second leader in recent days after Sam Pitroda, who stoked controversy over their statements giving ammo to the ruling BJP to target the grand old party.