Mani Shankar Aiyar Warns Pak Could Drop Atom Bomb If Provoked; Congress Says Not Party’s Remark

By OB Bureau On May 10, 2024

New Delhi: Congress veteran Mani Shankar Aiyar on Friday said that India should engage in dialogue with Pakistan and not flex its military muscles as it may irk Islamabad into deploying nuclear weapons against New Delhi, making him the second leader in recent days to warn about Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities. Earlier this week, National Conference (NC) chief Farooq Abdullah remarked sharply that Pakistan could resort to using atomic bombs if provoked.

An advocate of normalising India-Pakistan relations, Aiyar, a former diplomat, stated that the government can talk tough to Islamabad if it wants to but if it doesn’t respect the neighbouring country, it may have to pay a heavy price. “They have atom bombs. We have them too, but if a ‘madman’ decides to drop a bomb on Lahore, it won’t take 8 seconds for the radiation to reach Amritsar,” he warned.

“If we respect them, they will remain peaceful. But if we snub them, what happens if a ‘madman’ comes up and decides to launch bombs [at India]?” Aiyar asked. Aiyar said, “In order to become the vishwaguru, no matter how serious our issues with Pakistan are, we have to show that we are working hard to resolve them. But in the last 10 years, there has been no hard work [to this end].”

Congress reacted to the remarks by stating that they did not reflect the party’s stance. It also accused the BJP of deliberately raking up an old interview of Aiyar’s to score political points.

“Indian National Congress dissociates itself completely from and disagrees totally with some remarks made by Mr Mani Shankar Aiyar few months back which have been revived today by the BJP in its attempt to deflect attention from Prime Minister Modi’s daily goof ups. Mr Aiyar does not speak for the party in any capacity whatsoever,” Congress leader Pawan Khera tweeted.

Notably, Mani Shankar Aiyar’s remarks came amid a diplomatic spat between India and Pakistan after PM Narendra Modi’s ‘ghar me ghus kar’ warning, where he said Indian forces would enter Pakistan to kill any terrorist who escapes over the border. Islamabad had denounced the “provocative remarks”.