The Congress on Tuesday tweeted a video of Bharatiya Janata Party leader Ravi Shankar Prasad using the Hindi honorific “ji” for Jaish-e-Mohammad founder Hafiz Saeed. The tweet, accompanied by the hashtag #BJPLovesTerrorists, came a day after the Union minister criticised Congress President Rahul Gandhi for a similar utterance.

Gandhi had on Monday referred to the chief of extremist group Jaish-e-Mohammad as “Masood Azhar ji”. He was speaking at a meeting of party workers in New Delhi.

“Come on Rahul Gandhi Ji!” Ravi Shankar Prasad tweeted soon after. “Earlier it were the likes of Digvijay Ji who called ‘Osama Ji’ and ‘Hafiz Saeed Sahab’. Now you are saying ‘Masood Azhar Ji’. What has happened to the Congress?”

On Tuesday morning, Congress spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi tweeted a video from June 2018, in which Prasad himself referred to Hafiz Saeed as “Hafiz ji”. “Hope this finds pride of place in BJP’s revamped website, as and when it returns,” she wrote.

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Rahul Gandhi’s remarks

On Monday, Gandhi had said: “You might remember Masood Azhar. During the previous government of the 56-inch people, [present] National Security Advisor Ajit Doval went in an aircraft with Masood Azhar ji and handed him over in Kandahar.”

Gandhi was referring to the Kandahar plane hijack incident of December 24, 1999, when terrorists belonging to the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen group hijacked an Indian Airlines aircraft and flew it to Kandahar, in Afghanistan. The Indian government, then also led by the BJP, had to free three terrorists, including Masood Azhar, to secure the release of over 160 passengers.

Azhar’s group has taken responsibility for the February 14 attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama, which killed 40 jawans of the Central Reserve Police Force.

However, after Gandhi’s remark, BJP leaders lashed out on Twitter.

Union minister Smriti Irani claimed that Gandhi loves terrorists. “What is common between Rahul Gandhi and Pakistan?” she asked. “Their love for terrorists. Please note Rahul ji’s reverence for terrorist Masood Azhar – a testimony to #RahulLovesTerrorists.”

Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala hit back, saying that BJP and “bhakt media” should first address important questions. “Did NSA Doval not escort and release terrorist Masood Azhar in Kandahar?” he asked. “Did Modiji not invite Pakistan’s rogue Inter-Services Intelligence to investigate Pathankot terror attack?” He also claimed that Gandhi’s honorific for Azhar was sarcasm.

On Tuesday, Surjewala shared a purported interview of Doval, in which he praised the United Progressive Alliance government’s policy of not negotiating with terrorists. “The UPA government has come out with a categorical policy on hijacking,” Doval said. “They have said there would be no concession, no talks.”

“Why did the BJP government not show the same guts?” Surjewala asked.