The Zee News story about comments made by Congress leaders in Pakistan starts off with some broad brush strokes. "For years, the Western media depicted India as a country of snake charmers," fulminates Zee editor Sudhir Chaudhury. "Now that Indian companies are buying British companies, the Western media has turned India into a country of fighting, conflict and intolerance."

What follows, however, has little to do with British companies, snake charmers or the Western media, unless 'west' includes Pakistan. Chaudhury goes on to show clips of former Indian ministers, both from the Congress, giving comments at Pakistani venues. Former foreign minister Salman Khurshid's praise for Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif may have been bad enough for Zee, but what Congress leader and perennial loose cannon Mani Shankar Aiyar said was even worse.

The comments have given the Bharatiya Janata Party a chance to claim that the two are traitors and as good as propagandists for the Islamic State or Pakistan's intelligence agency.

Some of the commentary on Aiyar's comments have sought to suggest that he was asking Pakistan for help to remove Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as a pre-condition for peace talks to go forward. While Aiyar has made some truly bizarre statements over the years, that's not quite what he said in Pakistan.

In reality, he just maintained the same snobbish, partisan elitism that drove him to make the chaiwala remark which Modi was able to latch on and turn into a campaign point. Here's what Aiyar said: "The first and the foremost thing is to remove Modi. Only then can the talks move forward. We have to wait for four more years. They (panelists) are all optimistc that we can move forward when Modi sahab is there, but I don’t think so.”

In fact, he was clearly asked whether he was calling for Pakistan to get rid of Modi, and Aiyar said no, "we", meaning the Congress, would do it. When asked how India and Pakistan can move forward from this crossroads, Aiyar says: "Bring us in, get rid of them [BJP]." The anchor goes on to say, but only you can remove them. "Yes, and we will," Aiyar says. "But Pakistan will have to wait for a bit."

As with other Congress loose cannons that haven't learnt anything form their rout in the Lok Sabha elections last year, Aiyar continues to maintain that India's problems can only be solved by one party.

His suggestion, as a former union minister, to Pakistan that the only thing to be done is wait for the next elections, is downright irresponsible. He may not have been asking Pakistan for help in removing Modi, but he did effectively say that Islamabad shouldn't plan to carry out any constructive diplomacy for the next three and a half years. As with the chaiwala remark, the comment comes as a reminder that, despite the resurgence of anti-Modi political operators of late, the Congress is yet to properly understand why the people voted in droves to throw them out of office in 2014.