Bharatiya Janata Party workers took to the streets of Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday to burn effigies of Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, whose vitriolic comments about Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the United Nations led to a nationwide protest.
Today’s protests in Lucknow came a day after a massive agitation near the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi; people were seen holding placards targeting Minister Pak. Similar protests were planned across India as the BJP attacked Modi. In Delhi, senior BJP members and Bengaluru MP Tejashvi Surya as well as Delhi BJP working president Virendra Sachdeva took to the streets of the city to protest the remark.
Visuals from Lucknow show a horde (many waving BJP flags) carrying placards reading “Bilawal Bhutto murdabad, murdabad” while others stomp on burning effigies of the Pak politician. On Thursday, Bhutto made what the BJP condemned as “very shameful… derogatory” remarks about the prime minister; he compared Modi to slain terrorist Osama bin Laden and said, “…the butcher of Gujarat (a reference to the 2002 riots) is alive and prime minister of India”.
