Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, the party of Prime Minister Imran Khan, on Thursday cited remarks by Bharatiya Janata Party leader BS Yeddyurappa to say that those “desperate to win an election” should be isolated.
Yeddyurappa had on Wednesday said India’s air strikes against a terror camp in Pakistan will help his party win more than 22 of the 28 seats in Karnataka in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. He said the wind was “increasingly blowing in favour of the BJP” and the air strikes have led to a “pro-Modi wave” in the country. On Thursday, however, he said his comments had been reported out of context.
Yeddyurappa’s remarks were criticised by many Twitter users. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf retweeted one such tweet by journalist Barkha Dutt, and added its comment: “We hope you understand that you were manipulated into war mongering. #LetBetterSensePrevail. Isolate the [people] who [are] desperate to win an election. War is in no nation’s interest & its soldiers & civilians who are the collateral damage. Don’t let one man use it for political mileage.”
Dutt replied that the party should focus on its own country, but Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf said: “When your domestic politicking is taking the region to a brink of war, and Pakistan being dragged in, it becomes our business.”
In another tweet, the Pakistani political party claimed it took two days “to reveal the political game behind sending two nuclear armed nations into an escalated tension situation”. “Air Force excursions, war mongering, soldiers in captivity and the lives of so many people in danger all equate to 22 seats in the eyes of representatives on India’s ruling party. Is war an election option?” it asked in a tweet.
On Wednesday, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf had said that a desperate bid to win an election by one man “is gripping an entire nation in war hysteria”. War is in no one’s interest except Narendra Modi, the party had alleged.
Clarifying on his remarks, Yeddyurappa had said: “I said that the ‘situation is favourable for BJP’, which I have been saying for the last couple of months,” he said. “This is not the first time that I said the BJP in Karnataka will win a minimum of 22 seats under the able leadership of Modiji.”
On Tuesday, India had said it had carried out “non-military preemptive” strikes on the biggest camp of the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed militant across the border. The Jaish-e-Mohammed had claimed responsibility for the February 14 terror attack in Pulwama in Jammu and Kashmir, in which 40 jawans of the Central Reserve Police Force were killed.
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