New Delhi: Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is getting an outpouring of support from politicians and social media users after Israeli Envoy Reuven Azar criticized her for condemning Israel’s continuing genocide in Gaza, maktoobmedia.com reported.
Jairam Ramesh , Congress general secretary in-charge communications, wrote on X that the Congress condemned Israeli Ambassador’s statement accusing Priyanka of ‘shameful deceit’.
Ramesh added that the Modi administration was showing ‘extreme moral cowardice’ without voicing against ‘Israel’s destruction of Gaza’.
‘It is too much to expect the Modi Govt, which has shown extreme moral cowardice when it comes to speaking out on Israel’s destruction of Gaza over the past 18-20 months, to take serious exception and objection to the Ambassador’s response,’ Ramesh wrote, adding ‘We do and find it totally unacceptable.’
Congress’s media chief, Pawan Khera, said Reuven Azar’s words were ‘unprecedented and intolerable’.
Further adding Khera said ‘that the ambassador of a state accused of genocide worldwide would target a sitting Member of the Indian Parliament is both unprecedented and intolerable. It is a direct affront to the dignity of Indian democracy’.
Khera asked External affairs minister Dr. S. Jaishankar if he would address the Israeli Ambassador’s attempt to intimidate Priyanka Gandhi, adding further he asked whether freedom of speech in the country was being ‘regulated from Israel’.
Pointing out that deflection or whitewashing would not help obscure facts he said that the world was witnessing the killing of civilians in Gaza.
Calling Israeli envoy’s remarks ‘disparaging’, Gaurav Gogoi, Congress’s Deputy Leader in the Lok Sabha said that Reuven Azar committed ‘a serious breach of privilege’, adding ‘Even if the Union Government is silent, the Parliament cannot remain a passive spectator’.