BJP national spokesman Sudhanshu Trivedi said on Sunday that central agencies will look into the alleged virtual participation of a Hamas leader in a protest programme in Kerala against Israel's war with the militant group. Earlier on Saturday, Kerala BJP chief K Surendran claimed that Hamas leader Khaled Mashal had virtually participated in a protest programme organised by an Islamist group in the southern state.
According to Trivedi, the Hamas leader spoke at a rally in Kerala, where Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is a Lok Sabha member.
"The rally was organised in Kerala. Law and order is a state responsibility. Now that this information is public, central agencies will thoroughly investigate whether the address was live or recorded. If this video was recorded, who got it?" Trivedi said at a press conference, PTI reported.
According to the BJP leader, this event should not be viewed in "isolation," but rather in "coherence".
A proposal passed by the Congress Working Committee (CWC) does not mention the word "Hamas," he said, adding that Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra tweeted about the Gaza conflict on Saturday but did not mention Hamas.
According to Trivedi, the Congress strategy is to keep one community united all the way to Palestine while dividing the other along "North and South, Tamil and Hindi, and forward-backward" lines, the PTI report said.
In response to the Congress' objection to the mention of the "Ram temple" in election campaigning in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, a BJP leader said the grand old party should clarify its position if it has an objection to "Ram" or the "temple," the report said.
He claimed that the name Ram is inscribed on Mahatma Gandhi's 'samadhi' and that Congress leaders used to visit temples during elections.
In fact, he claimed that with the completion of the Ram temple construction, the Congress has become desperate because it never wanted it to happen.
Elections to the 230-member Madhya Pradesh assembly will be held on November 7, with votes counted on December 3.