Pakistan has been meddling in India’s election debates in one way or another, this time around, apart from the question of Pakistan’s atomic bomb and whether India should fear it, neighbouring politician Fawad Chaudhry has been a constant topic of discussion.
During the drawn-out Lok Sabha election campaign, Chaudhry had conveyed his support for Indian National Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal on various occasions, which was enough for the BJP to think that there was a “Pakistan design” behind the India bloc.
About a month ago, Chaudhry shared a video on his social media account of Rahul criticising Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party and captioned it, “Rahul enraged…”
The BJP was quick to respond, saying the “ties” between the Indian National Congress and Pakistan couldn’t be clearer. “Fawad Hussain, who was Information and Broadcasting Minister in Imran Khan’s cabinet, is endorsing Rahul Gandhi. Will the Indian National Congress contest elections in Pakistan?” posted BJP IT chief Amit Malviya.
Modi joined in soon after, telling a rally in Gujarat: “Here the Congress is dying, over there Pakistan is crying. You all know that Pakistani leaders are praying for the Congress. Pakistan is eager to make Shehzada (Rahul) its prime minister… and we know the Congress Party is a follower of Pakistan… the enemies of this country do not want a strong government in India.”
“The reasons why people who are hostile towards us worship a few people… should be investigated,” the Prime Minister said in a recent interview to IANS.
Several other BJP leaders told Chaudhry to focus on the problems facing Pakistan.
But on May 25, as voting went ahead in Delhi, Chaudhri again stepped in, replying to X’s post about Kejriwal voting with his family, saying, “May peace and harmony defeat the forces of hatred and extremism.”
Ahead of the BJP strike, Kejriwal responded to him.said, “Chaudhri Sahib, I and my people are more than capable of dealing with the issues. There is no need for your tweets. The situation in Pakistan is very bad at present. You should take care of your country… India will not tolerate interference from the biggest sponsor of terror.”
However, Chaudhry returned on Tuesday and told IANS: “It is very important that Modi loses the election. Every Pakistani wants him to lose.” Supporting the Indian coalition, he also sent his congratulations to Indian National Congress leader Mamata Banerjee, apart from Rahul and Kejriwal.
What is more surprising to Pakistan than Chaudhry’s interest in the Indian elections is the interest Indian leaders are taking in him.
Chaudhry previously served as head of the Ministry of Information under Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government and is said to have been given the ministry post by the former cricketer due to their close relationship.
The PTI has faced severe criticism from the Pakistani establishment and Imran is in prison. Choudhury has been away from the party for a year.He resigned soon after the PTI government was toppled. With his political graph on a nosedive, he announced that he was taking a “break from politics”.
Nowadays, Choudhury only makes news when media outlets follow up on him or when he makes an attention-grabbing post on social media.
Chaudhry, a lawyer, has one thing in common with his political colleagues across the border: he has frequently jumped from party to party. He started out with the Pakistan Muslim League (Q), which was founded with the support of then Pakistan President Parvez Musharraf, and became a close aide to the late General Musharraf. But as Musharraf began to lose steam, Chaudhry joined Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party in 2012. From 2012 to 2013, he served as special assistant to Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani under the PPP government, and held the rank of minister of state for information and political affairs. He continued in that role when the PPP replaced Gilani with Raja Pervaiz Ashraf.
In 2016, he joined Imran’s PTI, which came to power in August 2018. From 2018 to 2022, he served as minister of information, a cabinet-level position, in the Imran Khan government.
Even at that time, Chaudhry was frequently in the news in India, mainly for his Twitter spat.
In 2019, he got into a heated exchange with Sushma Swaraj, the then Indian External Affairs Minister, after she asked the Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan to submit a report into the alleged kidnapping and forced conversion of two Hindu teenage sisters in Pakistan.
Chaudhry countered that this was Pakistan’s “internal matter” and that he hoped the Indian government would “act with the same caution when it comes to the rights of Indian minorities”.
That same year, when India’s lunar probe Chandrayaan-2 failed, Chowdhury mocked the Indian government for “spending Rs 9,000 crore” on it and claimed it was “unwise” to venture into “unknown territory”.
In 2020, Chaudhry declared in Pakistan’s national assembly (the country’s equivalent of parliament) that “we have attacked India on its soil.”
This is in Delhi Acknowledges Pakistan’s involvement in Pulwama terror attackIn February 2019, an attack on Indian security forces in Kashmir left 40 Indian security personnel dead.
But Chaudhry, who held the science and technology portfolio in 2023, was more open-minded after India’s successful moon landing as part of Chandrayaan-3. He urged Pakistani media to broadcast the landing live, calling it “a historic moment for humanity and especially for the Indian people, scientists and space community”, and posted after the mission: “A wonderful moment… I can see many young scientists celebrating this moment with ISRO Chairman Somnath… Only the younger generation with dreams can change the world.”
As far as we know, Chaudhry has weathered the praise for India without facing any “anti-national” accusations in India.
