Congress not condemning Hamas is appeasement politics: BJP

NEW DELHI: BJP on Tuesday accused Congress and its alliance partners of fighting shy of condemning the killing of innocent and unarmed Israeli civilians, saying the reluctance of opposition parties was reflective of their obsession with "politics of appeasement".
"Congress at it again. Supporting terror organisations and terrorism while innocent civilians lose their lives to bullets," Union minister Pralhad Joshi said in a post on X a day after the Congress Working Committee, in its resolution, omitted mention of the terrorist attack by Hamas.
"With this stand, the leading party of INDI Alliance has exposed itself to the nation.How will the party protect its nation and citizens when it is openly standing with violence?" Joshi added a day after Left student unions in the campus of Aligarh Muslim University, JNU and Jamia Milia demonstrated in support of Palestinians.

Rajya Sabha MP and BJP's chief spokesperson Anil Baluni said Congress's politics of appeasement was on full display at the cost of basic human sensitivities. "Though Congress coined Hindu terror, we believe that terror has no religion. But for the CWC to ignore the killing of innocent civilians and to focus only on the demands of the Palestinians speaks of a mindset which places electoral considerations over basic human values," Baluni said.
The statements came against the backdrop of an array of politicians - National Conference's Omar Abdullah, PDP's Mehbooba Mufti and AIMIM's Asaduddin Owaisi - supporting the Palestinian cause, in sharp contrast to PM Modi's unequivocal condemnation of the killings by Hamas as a 'terrorist attack".

The gap between the positions can potentially create a new faultline during the campaign for assembly polls. The day Israel was attacked, BJP on its social media handles floated the "Never forgive, never forget" hashtag, saying, "What Israel is facing today, India suffered between 2004-14." The reference was to the spate of terror attacks under UPA governments and BJP's charge that they were facilitated by a government that was weak, lacked willpower and practised votebank politics.
Sharing a clip of the movie 'A Wednesday' based on terror attacks in the country, the party said, "If cinema is a reflection of the times we live in, this film from the UPA era is a grim reminder of how terrorist attacks had become routine in India between 2004-14. Our collective memories of those horrendous times may have become feeble. But never forgive, never forget."
With all indications suggesting that West Asia is headed for a prolonged period of conflict, the political fight over terrorism can well intensify.