Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy continues to grab headlines with his outspoken remarks, even about his own party. With the Lok Sabha elections looming, Swamy's recent comments have once again put him in the spotlight, this time regarding Prime Minister Modi's actions. Following the return of eight Indian Navy personnel from Qatar, where they faced dire circumstances, Swamy has attributed their release not solely to PM Modi, but to someone else. Despite the widespread joy among the soldiers' families and praise for the Modi government's diplomatic efforts, Swamy's perspective adds another layer of discussion to the situation.
On February 13, PM Narendra Modi made a tweet on his social media and gave information about his foreign trip. He wrote – ‘In the next two days, I will visit UAE and Qatar to participate in various programs, which will further deepen India’s bilateral relations with these countries. I am visiting UAE on official visit from 13-14 February and Qatar from 14-15 February. This will be my seventh visit to the UAE and second to Qatar since 2014. Over the past nine years, our cooperation with the UAE has grown manifold in various fields such as trade and investment, defense and security, food and energy security and education. Our cultural and people-to-people ties are stronger than ever. I look forward to meeting His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE, in Abu Dhabi and having wide-ranging discussions on furthering our comprehensive strategic partnership. I recently had the pleasure of hosting His Excellency in Gujarat, where he was the chief guest at the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit 2024.
Commenting on this tweet, senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy took a dig at PM Modi and gave the credit for the return of 8 navy soldiers from Qatar to Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan. Subramanian Swamy tweeted that Modi could not achieve anything in his Qatar diplomacy. Shahrukh Khan has talked about the return of Navy ex-servicemen. He tweeted and wrote – PM Modi should take cinema star Shahrukh Khan with him to Qatar because the Ministry of External Affairs and NSA had failed to convince the Sheikhs of Qatar. Finally PM Modi requested Shahrukh Khan to intervene, and thus struck a costly deal with the Qatar Sheikhs to free our naval officers.
The Indian nationals were arrested by the Qatar intelligence agency in August 2022, on allegations of espionage and Qatar’s Court of First Instance handing over death sentences to them on October 26, which came as a surprise for the Indian government. Since the MEA and PM Modi launched extensive diplomatic efforts, the Court of Appeal on December 28, reduced the capital punishment to jail terms for varying durations to each of eight Navy veterans. Throughout the court trial, Qatar authorities, former Navy officials, and the Indian government kept silent on the case and even the release came as a surprise on Monday. After the case, Al-Dhara Global closed its operations in Doha, last May and other Indians working with the company returned home.