NEW DELHI: Indian opposition leaders on Monday charged Prime Minister Narendra Modi of making the extraordinary threat of a nuclear war to influence voters amid the ongoing national elections, after Modi warned Pakistan at a poll rally in Rajasthan that India's "nuclear button" was not "for Diwali". The nuclear button and the army "is not the property of one individual," senior Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia told media but for showing India was not afraid of its neighbour anymore.
"Every other day they announced, "We have nuclear button, we have nuclear button". So what do we have then? Are those being saved for Diwali?" PM Modi had said in Rajasthan's Barmer.
Condemning PM Modi's remarks, Mr Scindia said the BJP only stood for the politicisation of "every single institution" of the country. His party colleague and former Home Minister P Chidambaram echoed similar sentiments. “Why is the PM becoming shriller by the day?
PM's threat to use the nuclear option is the most extraordinary statement of this election.,” He tweeted. The BJP has built its election campaign around national security ever since tension between India and Pakistan escalated after a terror attack on a CRPF convoy in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama.
Seizing the opportunity to attack the BJP, former ally Mehbooba Mufti reacted to PM Modi's comments as well with a jibe of her own. “If India hasn’t kept nuclear bomb for Diwali, it’s obvious Pakistan’s not kept theirs for Eid either. Don’t know why PM Modi must stoop so low & reduce political discourse to this,” she tweeted.
In yet another tweet, Ms Mufti attacked the BJP's methods of conducting political discourse, questioning whether one needs to be "enthusiastic about nuclear war to earn the credentials of a true patriot." Another twitterati said about Modi: “And this is just the beginning.. he will stoop further.”
Hours after Ms Mufti's comments, National Conference Chief Omar Abdullah said both PM Modi and the Mufti had treated the issue as seriously as playing a mobile game. “Whether Diwali or Eid, both PM Modi & Ms Mufti have used the threat of nuclear annihilation as some sort of PUBG type game where they can just hit the reset button & life will carry on. Both of them would be well served to remember #Hiroshima & #Nagasaki when issuing such threats,” he said.
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