Amid the Opposition’s mounting criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “silence” on the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Congress MP Imran Masood met the late Iranian regime leader’s India-based representative in New Delhi on Tuesday.
Heaping praise on Khamenei’s focus on the diplomatic ties between India and Iran, Masood said that the passing of the head of any country is sad and that the Iranian leader held India in high regard.
Talking about his conversation with Dr Abdul Majid Hakeem Ilahi, representative of the late Khamenei, Masood said he was informed that Khamenei thought of the ties between India and Iran to be 3,000 years old.
“Khamenei Sahib himself mentioned that Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, in his Discovery of India, wrote about this relationship. He (Khamenei’s representative) said he (Khamenei) had read it four times and personally told me, ‘To understand India, read Discovery of India,” Masood reportedly said.
The Congress MP’s meeting with Khamenei’s representative was followed by Congress leader Sonia Gandhi’s criticism of PM Modi, questioning his “silence” on Khamenei’s killing in strikes led by Israel and the US over the weekend in Iran.
In an article published in The Indian Expressshe said that silence in this matter is “not neutral”, but an “abdication”. “If such acts pass without principled objection from the world’s largest democracy, the erosion of international norms becomes easier to normalize,” Gandhi added.
‘More knowledge about India than…’
Addressing reporters after his meeting with Khamenei’s India-based representative, Imran Masood also said that he was told that the late Supreme Leader knew more about India than “many other educated and capable people”.
“He was a very learned and capable person who possessed extensive knowledge about India and had a special connection with Gandhi Ji and Nehru, sharing a similar ideology. Iran has always maintained this bond in the interest of humanity and has consistently stood for the principle that humanity must continue to thrive,” said Imran Masood, as quoted by news agency ANI.
The Congress MP said that he met Dr Abdul Majid Hakeem Ilahi to express condolences over Khamenei’s killing and described the incident as a “sad event”.