The BJP on Friday questioned the comments of a prominent Congress leader “justifying” the Paris terror attack on journalists, and asked why Congress president Sonia Gandhi was silent on the remarks.
Reacting sharply to Congress MP Mani Shankar Aiyar calling the attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine team an “obvious backlash” against the “war on terror,” BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad asked the Opposition party to stop vote-bank politics.
The Congress distanced itself from Mr. Aiyar’s remarks saying they were personal comments, and added that the party president had condemned the attack in the strongest terms. “After that nobody else’s comments are of relevance,” the party spokesperson said.
On Thursday, Mr. Aiyar stoked a controversy when he told a television channel that “we have to accept that several [Muslims] have been deprived of their family members in the war on terror that started after the twin tower attack on 9/11. This is what America did in Iraq and Afghanistan and now it seems they will do it in Syria. So a backlash is imminent.”
