PM Modi, Sushma got India labelled as ‘terrorist state’ at OIC, alleges Congress

New Delhi [India], Mar 3 (ANI): The Congress party on Sunday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj of getting India labelled as a ‘terrorist state’ at the recently concluded conference of Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Abu Dhabi.
“What happened in Abu Dhabi is extremely disturbing for India and every citizen of this country,” said Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari, while addressing a press conference here on Sunday.
Tewari said that the OIC chose to state in its resolution, which reads: “Condemn in the strongest possible terms recent wave of Indian terrorism.”
The Congress leader also referred to the use of expressions in OIC resolution like: “Indian terrorism in occupied Jammu and Kashmir that have resulted in the deaths of 48 people in November alone, making 2018 one of the deadliest years in the history of occupied Jammu and Kashmir in more than a decade over 450 casualties.”
“Is this your great diplomatic achievement that you go to OIC meeting, you lend legitimacy to them? You get a resolution calling India a ‘terrorist state.’ Are we occupying our Jammu and Kashmir? You got labelled India as an occupier in Jammu and Kashmir,” he said.
“You get a resolution which states that OIC appeals to other member states and Islamic institutions to provide humanitarian aid to the Kashmiri people,” Tewari said, while speaking in the context of the OIC resolution.  
He said that there was a reason why India had chosen to deliberately ignore these meetings of OIC over the past so many decades.
“Congress unequivocally states the NDA-BJP sold the national interest in Abu Dhabi. By participating in the OIC meeting and getting such a hostile resolution in response, the NDA-BJP government surrendered,” he said.
“The Central government is attempting to downplay the OIC resolution. If this resolution is of no importance, then why did External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj last night put out a statement reaffirming our stand on J&K,” he asked.
“There could not have been a greater and more abject surrender of India’s national interest than the External Affairs Minister providing legitimacy by her presence and getting a resolution in return which labelled India as a terrorist state,” said Tewari, also a former Union Minister.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj was invited as a ‘Guest of Honour’ to attend the meeting of OIC in Abu Dhabi on March 1, where she addressed the plenary session of the conference.
Pakistan had boycotted the conference to protest against the invitation to India for the first time in the grouping’s 50-year-old history.
In response to questions about air strikes at JeM camp in Balakot, Pakistan, Tewari said: “The opposition is not questioning air strikes. PM Modi himself is doing it. When he says that if we had Rafale, then the result would have been different—what does it mean?”
“The Prime Minister is directly responsible if we don’t have Rafale. Had they not cancelled the contract, the Rafale would be here,” he said, denying if the allegations that the Congress was asking for proofs of air strikes. “We are not asking for any proofs,” he said.  
The Indian Air Force (IAF) carried out a strike on February 26 in Balakot in Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, which destroyed a major terrorist training camp run by Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and eliminated a ‘large number’ of terrorists including some top commanders. (ANI)