Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) IT cell head Amit Malviya shared a video of Congress workers celebrating Rajya Sabha member Syed Naseer Hussain’s election victory, alleging that they raised pro-Pakistan slogans.
Sharing a version of the video on X (formerly Twitter), Malviya said “"Pakistan Zindabad slogans raised after Congress’s Naseer Hussain, political secretary of Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, won Rajya Sabha election from Karnataka. Congress’s obsession with Pakistan is dangerous (sic),” adding that it was taking the country “towards Balkanisation.”
Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar and Bengaluru MP Tejaswi Surya also shared the video with the same claim.
BJP Karnataka workers filed an FIR regarding the alleged slogans in Bengaluru’s Vidhana Soudha police station on Tuesday, 27 February, submitting a statement to the cops.
“It was as if these supporters of Nazir Hussain shouted PAKISTAN ZINDABAD slogans hailing and praising Pakistan on the election of Mr Nazir Hussain to the RAJYA SABHA OR UPPER HOUSE IN INDIA,” it read, claiming that the “slogan is an open insult to national honour and an offence against the integrity and sovereigity of India. (sic)”
The BJP has demanded that a criminal case be filed against Hussain and his supporters under various sections, including Section 124-A of the IPC (sedition), “failing which the serious action will be taken for supporting the national traitors.”
How did the Congress respond?: The Congress party categorically denied allegations of pro-Pakistan slogans being raised during Hussain’s victory celebrations.
Responding to Malviya’s post, Youth Congress National President Srinivas BV claimed that the slogans raised by their party workers were “hailing @NasirHussainINC as Nasir Saab,” not Pakistan.”
Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee’s communications chairperson Priyank Kharge, too, took to X to respond to Chandrasekhar, accusing Karnataka’s central government ministers of speaking up “solely to propagate misinformation, remaining silent when the state faces injustice.”
He went on to call the ministers the kind of people who were “the real anti nationals and anti Kannadigas.”
Hussain also his version of events on X, addressing the viral allegation.
"I would like to say here that when I was there, when I was in the midst of the people, there were a lot of slogans that were being shouted there, but I never heard a slogan called 'Pakistan Zindabad' there," he said.
"We have asked the police to investigate it," the MP added, saying that if somebody had "morphed" or "doctored" the video, or if someone raised such slogans, "Who is he? From where did he come? How did he enter the premises there? What was his intention?" needed to be investigated.
Available videos of the event carry audio that is loud and cluttered. To better understand what was being said, we slowed down videos shared by the leaders for more clarity.
Here, we noticed that the first slogan was “Nasir Hussain Zindabad,” followed by “Nasir Saab Zindabad.”
On observing the face of one of the men encircled in the video, we saw that his mouth matched the movements one would make while saying “Nasir Hussain Zindabad.”
In another video from a different angle, shared by ‘Power TV News’, we heard more slogans like “Syed Nasir Hussain Jai,” “Zindabad, Zindabad, Syed Nasir Hussain Zindabad,” and “Nasir Saab Zindabad.”
We reached out to Bengaluru Central DCP Shekhar H Tekkannavar, who told The Quint that the investigation into the matter was still going on.
When asked about Congress' claims of the slogans being about Hussain, he declined to comment.
The Quint's WebQoof team has previously debunked similar claims on several occasions, where media organisations and political party leaders had falsely claimed that pro-Pakistan slogans were raised during political rallies and other events.
(With inputs from Karan Mahadik.)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)