New Delhi: Former Vice-President Hamid Ansari has triggered a controversy by calling Mahmud Ghazni an Indian dacoit, and not a foreign invader.
In a video that has gone viral, Ansari said that it’s published in books that some Lodi had come, or some Ghazni had come, but all of these people were ‘Hindustani lootere’ (dacoits).
“Log apni kitabo mei chapwate hai… koi Lodi aaye, koi Ghazni aye… par yeh sab toh Hindustani lootere the, ye bahar se nahi aye the,” Ansari is heard saying in the interview.
“It’s politically convenient to say that they demolished this or that… but they did not come from outside India,” Ansari emphasised.
“Main Babar ki Aulaad Nahin Hoon” Mohammed Hamid Ansari, former Vice President of India and perhaps the most ‘controversial Muslim public figure’ addresses identity, his family history and the current foreign affairs issues in my podcast with him. pic.twitter.com/7dvluGkB32
— Arfa Khanum Sherwani (@khanumarfa) January 30, 2026
Ansari, who served as India’s Vice-President for two terms, was first elected to the coveted post in August 2007 as a candidate of the then-UPA government led by Congress. He was re-elected five years later, but decided not to run for a third term.
The BJP pounced on Ansari’s comments, and asked the Congress leadership and Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi if they are in agreement with the comments of the former VP, who was their choice.
BJP national spokesperson CR Kesavan shared the video on asocial media and slammed the Congress.
“Ghazni was not a foreign invader, he was Indian! Indeed shocking remarks by former Vice-President Hamid Ansari, who was the Congress-led UPA government’s choice for the post of Vice-President, not once but twice. Does the Congress leadership and LOP Rahul Gandhi agree with such whitewashing of mercenary brutal raids as mere domestic acts, which demolished Hindu temples and murdered thousands?” Kesavan wrote on X.
“Beginning with the Islamic invasions of the early 8th century until the Mughal rule, sacred Hindu religious landmarks were systematically targeted. The barbaric Mahmud Ghazni raided India 17 times in the 11th century, ravaging the Mathura temple and breaking the Somnath temple’s Jyotirlinga. Does Nehru’s Congress, which vehemently opposed the reconstruction of the Somnath Temple, agree with these remarks trying to normalise such brutality which was aimed at annihilating the very foundations of our Sanatan Sanskriti,” Kesavan asked.
Another BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawala accused the Congress of always eulogising Hindu haters and whitewashing their atrocities.
“The Congress ecosystem always eulogises Hindu haters. Whoever attacks or commits atrocities on Hindus is always subjected to whitewashing by the Congress ecosystem. Now, Hamid Ansari says that Ghazni was not a cruel person. Ghazni was just an Indian… Even if the person is doing tukde tukde of India, whether it’s Sharjeel, Yaqub, Afzal, or Umar, they stand in support of such elements. It shows the Hindu hatred they have in their minds,” Poonawala told ANI.