Cong wants India to blindly side with Iran, even China distancing itself from Tehran: BJP

Lashing out at the Congress for wanting India to blindly side with Iran, the BJP on Thursday said the countrys foreign policy must be guided by national interest and the safety of its citizens, not by the compulsions of the opposition partys outdated ideological reflexes.

Lashing out at the Congress for wanting India to ''blindly side with Iran'', the BJP on Thursday said the country's foreign policy must be guided by national interest and the safety of its citizens, not by the compulsions of the opposition party's ''outdated ideological reflexes''. Several BJP leaders, including Amit Malviya and Pradeep Bhandari, spoke on the issue, calling the Congress ''anti-India'' and alleging that the main opposition party pursues divisive politics. It only loves its vote bank, not the country and its people, the ruling party said. ''Even China, which spent years diplomatically shielding Iran, overlooking its support for proxy terror groups and buying the bulk of its oil, is now distancing itself from Tehran,'' Malviya said in a post on X. ''Yet the Indian National Congress wants India to blindly side with Iran, even as it continues reckless actions across the Gulf, threatens vital oil shipping routes, and escalates tensions in a region where millions of Indians live and work,'' the BJP's IT department head said. India's foreign policy, Malviya added, must be ''guided by national interest and the safety of its citizens, not by the compulsions of Congress' outdated ideological reflexes''. A day after a US submarine torpedoed and sank an Iranian warship in international waters off Sri Lanka's coast, the Congress said it is shocking that there has been no response from the Modi government and claimed that never before has the Indian government looked so ''timid and fearful''. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying the West Asia conflict has reached India's backyard, but he has not spoken. While the country needed a steady hand at the wheel, it has a ''compromised PM who has surrendered our strategic autonomy'', the opposition leader said. BJP national spokesperson Bhandari said in his sharp response, ''Anti-India Congress wants India to comment on a conflict, where it is not directly involved; whereas its own track record is that of silence at the cost of national interest!'' He alleged in a post on X that when the Congress was in power, Sonia Gandhi ''instructed'' then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh not to let any minister express grief on the loss of innocent lives because of Naxal terror. ''Tukde-Tukde Congress hates India and Indians; loves vote bank,'' he added. Shehzad Poonawalla, another BJP national spokesperson, echoed the view. ''The 2010 letter from Cabinet Secretary, on PM Manmohan Singh's directions, gagged all Union ministers from commenting on the Naxal/Maoist issue publicly, right after the brutal Dantewada massacre of 76 CRPF jawans,'' he said in a post on X. ''Classic Congress soft-pedalling on Left-wing extremism: muzzle your own ministers, treat Maoists with kid gloves and let security forces pay the price,'' the BJP spokesperson said, alleging that the Congress was ''weak then and now'' as well. Instead of showing strong resolve and unity against India's ''greatest internal security threat'', the Congress chose ''silence, damage control and shielding criticism,'' he alleged. In a post on X from its official handle, the BJP accused the Congress of spreading blatant ''lies and misinformation'' by attempting to blame the Indian government for the US submarine strike on the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena in the Indian Ocean. ''This is nothing short of a desperate, politically motivated smear campaign that distorts facts to attack the government,'' the party said. ''Claims made by the Congress are not just misleading, they are outrightly false, designed to undermine India's sovereignty and diplomatic standing for their cheap political points.'' The BJP further said that despite the incident being in Sri Lanka's SAR zone, the Indian Navy promptly launched a full search and rescue operation as soon as the distress call reached MRCC Colombo. It deployed a long-range maritime patrol aircraft within hours, kept another aircraft with air-droppable life rafts on standby, diverted INS Tarangini and sailed INS Ikshak from Kochi to continue the humanitarian search for missing personnel, the party said. ''Yet the Congress prioritises anti-government and anti-India rhetoric over truth, national interest and basic facts. This pattern of spreading lies to score points only weakens India's unified voice on the global stage,'' the BJP said. The Modi government continues to uphold India's strategic autonomy through ''principled diplomacy'', without being dragged into ''baseless controversies manufactured by the Congress'', the ruling party added.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)