As India’s Modi drags Pakistan into election campaign, will ties worsen?

Unlike in 2019, Pakistan was largely absent from India’s election rhetoric. Now that’s changed – after a three-word social media post. What’s next for the neighbours?

Islamabad, Pakistan – Pakistan’s former information minister, Fawad Chaudhry, says he did not realise that a three-word post on social media platform X on May 1 would inject his country into a heated conversation it had otherwise skirted until then: India’s noisy election campaign.

“Rahul on fire …” he wrote, reposting a video clip of Rahul Gandhi, a leader of the Indian opposition Congress party, in which he could be seen criticising Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP).

Rahul on fire …. https://t.co/6pi1mL0bQN

— Ch Fawad Hussain (@fawadchaudhry) May 1, 2024

Chaudhry’s post, which came in the midst of India’s massive election process that spans seven different voting days, starting in April and ending in June, immediately went viral, racking up more than 1.8 million views. It was retweeted 1,800 times and received over 1,500 replies.

Among those who responded was Amit Malviya, the boss of the BJP’s information technology wing, who oversees the party’s vast social media machinery. Malviya accused Chaudhry of promoting Congress leader Gandhi.

“Is the Congress planning to contest election in Pakistan? From a manifesto, that has imprints of the Muslim league to a ringing endorsement, from across the border, Congress’s dalliance with Pakistan can’t get more obvious,” Malviya wrote.

The Muslim League, one of pre-Partition India’s major political forces, was behind the movement that led to the creation of Pakistan.

Ch Fawad Hussain, who served in the Imran Khan cabinet, as Minister for Information and Broadcasting, is promoting