NEW DELHI: Ahead of Rahul Gandhi’s Amethi visit on Wednesday, posters were put up in the Congress MP’s former Lok Sabha constituency targeting him and leaders of the party-led INDIA bloc for taking a “pro-Pakistan” stand amid escalating tensions with the neighbouring country over last week’s terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam.
Gandhi is on a two-day visit to Rae Bareli, which he currently represents in the Lok Sabha, and Amethi. He visited Rae Bareli on Tuesday.
“INDI’s hand is with Pakistan,” one of the posters read. Hand is the Congress’ symbol.
The poster had comments from National Conference supremo Farooq Abdullah and Congress leader Vijay Wadettiwar. It called Gandhi a “sympathiser” of terrorism (“Aatank ka saathi”).
Similar banners were put up across the Uttar Pradesh town targeting the opposition INDIA group leaders for making statements “favouring” Pakistan.
The Congress and other opposition parties have declared their complete support to the government as it plans India’s response for the Pahalgam attack, carried out by Pakistan-backed terrorists. However, stray remarks from its leaders forced the grand old party to distance itself from their comments.
“Some Congress leaders have been speaking to the media. They speak for themselves and do not reflect the Congress’ views. There should be absolutely no doubt whatsoever at this most sensitive of times that the CWC resolution, the views expressed by (Congress president) Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi and the views of authorised AICC office-bearers ALONE represent the position of the Congress (sic),” Congress general secretary in-charge of communications Jairam Ramesh said in a post on X.
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Last night, after much outrage, the party deleted a social media post in which it accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of going “missing” during the crisis. The image, which showed a headless PM, was captioned “Gayab” (missing).