Taking strong exception to Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam terming Indian Army’s surgical strikes across the LoC as “fake”, members of a Mumbai-based civil society group have decided to boycott an event on civic issue organised by the party.
Sanjay Nirupam also happens to be the chief of the Mumbai unit of the Congress party.
The party, however, cancelled the panel discussion, on alleged “abduction of open spaces” in the city, which was scheduled at Patrakar Bhavan here at 3 PM today. No reason was given for cancelling the event.
Many panellists who were supposed to participate in this panel discussion had pulled out of the event in protest against Sanjay Nirupam’s remarks yesterday.
Those who pulled out of the event included former Central Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi, Anandini Thakur and RTI activist Bhaskar Prabhu.
Gandhi, in an e-mail sent to Nirupam yesterday, expressed their decision not to attend the discussion.
“It pains all Indians to hear an Indian national talking in such a manner and providing support to Pakistan’s stand,” he said in the e-mail.
“We found Nirupam questioning the authenticity of the surgical strikes and terming them fake as extremely unwarranted and avoidable. After having consultation with other members of the civil society, we decided to keep ourselves away from the meeting organised by Nirupam,” Gandhi said.
However, he said the civil society members will continue their opposition to the alleged abduction of public open spaces in Mumbai.
The opposition parties as well as members of the civil society are not in favour of the Mumbai civic body’s fresh plan to regulate open spaces in the metropolis, and to raise the issue the city unit of Congress had planned a panel discussion over it later today.
A political slugfest had erupted yesterday over the surgical strikes targeting terror launch pads across the LoC with Nirupam calling them “fake”, provoking stinging criticism from BJP even as his own party said it “totally dissociates” from his remarks.
“Every Indian wants surgical strikes against Pakistan but not a fake one to extract just political benefit by BJP. politics over national interest(sic),” Nirupam had tweeted.
(With PTI inputs)
