New Delhi: The Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting in Belagavi, Karnataka, began on a controversial note with the BJP alleging that the Congress put up a welcome banner with a ‘distorted’ map of India showing parts of Jammu and Kashmir in Pakistan.
BJP Rajya Sabha MP Sudhanshu Trivedi held a press conference Thursday condemning the Congress for presenting a ‘distorted’ map of India. He said ‘Pakistan-occupied Kashmir’ and ‘Aksai Chin’ were missing from the map.
“Today the entire nation is celebrating ‘Veer Bal Diwas’ on the sacred occasion of the sacrifice of Guru Gobind Singh ji’s Sahibzaades but another troubling image has surfaced that during a Congress event in Belagavi, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Aksai Chin were missing from the map of India in posters put up by the Congress party,” Trivedi said. “Shockingly, this map was shown alongside a photo of Mahatma Gandhi,” he said during a press conference held at the BJP headquarters in New Delhi.
The BJP’s claims came after its Karnataka unit posted on ‘X’ pictures of a banner and a welcome flex allegedly put up by the Congress in Karnataka ahead of the CWC meeting. The Congress is in power in the state.
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“@INCKarnataka, has shown utter disrespect for India’s sovereignty by displaying a distorted map at their Belagavi event, portraying Kashmir as part of Pakistan. All this just to appease their vote bank. This is shameful. #CongressInsultsIndia #JammuAndKashmir,” Karnataka BJP wrote.
Trivedi questioned the Congress, and asked whether “any internal discussion had taken place in Belagavi about dividing India in some way”.
He alleged that this was not the first time the Congress used a ‘distorted’ map of India. “Why has Congress, in its posts on Twitter repeatedly depicted India with parts of its territory missing over the years,” he asked.
“Congress’s women’s wing, too, once posted a similar map showing the same omissions. Is this mere coincidence, or part of a deliberate anti-India agenda? Who is orchestrating this repeated misrepresentation of India’s map by Congress? Is this being done under instructions from external anti-India forces, like a signal from Soros secret service, or other foreign entities across the seas,” Trivedi alleged.
BJP had during the recently-concluded Winter Session of Parliament stepped up its attack on the Congress, accusing the party of acting at the behest of US-based billionaire George Soros.
On Thursday, BJP’s Amit Malviya took to X to allege that former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, as “co-president of the George Soros funded Forum of Democratic Leaders in Asia Pacific (FDL-AP) Foundation, which advocates Kashmiri Independence, is not a coincidence, but a firm belief of the Congress…”.
“At its Belagavi event, the Congress has put up a distorted map of India on all its hoardings, along with pictures of Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Vadra, among others, showing Kashmir as part of Pakistan. It can’t be a mistake. It is a statement. It is part of their appeasement politics, which believes Indian Muslims are more loyal to Pakistan than India…The Congress is the New Muslim League. It wants to break India, again,” Malviya claimed.
Reacting to it, Karnataka Deputy CM D.K. Shivakumar told the media, “BJP is there to attack us, they can’t digest … there is no medicine for jealousy … let them do what they want, we will do whatever we want.”
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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