‘Stood tall amidst…’: Pak politician lauds ‘Nehru’s granddaughter’ Priyanka Gandhi over Palestine bag

Pakistani politician Fawad Chaudhry was effusive in his praise for Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra after she carried a bag with “Palestine” emblazoned on it to Parliament on Monday.

The former Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader slammed his fellow Pakistani politicians for “not demonstrating such courage.”

Chaudhry posted on X (formerly Twitter), “What else could we expect from a granddaughter of a towering freedom fighter like Jawaharlal Nehru? Priyanka Gandhi has stood tall amidst pigmies, such shame that to date, no Pakistani member of Parliament has demonstrated such courage.”

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, a vocal supporter of the Palestinian cause, was seen with the “Palestine” bag in Parliament, where the Winter Session is underway.

While the gesture led to the ruling BJP accusing members of the Nehru-Gandhi family of “roaming around with the bag of appeasement,” the Congress MP hit back, and called out what she described as “typical patriarchy.”

She told a reporter, “No one will decide what I would wear. Who is going to decide what clothes I am going to wear? This is typical patriarchy, deciding what a woman should wear.”

According to a news agency PTI report, Abed Elrazeg Abu Jazer, Charge d’affaires of the Palestine Embassy in New Delhi, had last week called on Vadra to congratulate the Congress leader on her recent election victory from Kerala’s Wayanad, a seat previously represented by her brother Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha.

In June, Vadra had slammed Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Israel’s “genocidal” actions in Palestine’s Gaza, which has been under an Israeli military offensive since October 2023. The offensive was launched following October 7 terrorist attacks in Israel by Hamas, the Islamist group that runs Gaza.