Indian flag at Capitol: BJP targets Shashi Tharoor over 'dear friend'

The violence at the US Capitol late on Wednesday by supporters of President Donald Trump remains top news worldwide. The sight of an Indian flag during the protests before the violence had led to both curiosity and criticism. Now that the 'flag waver' has been identified as Vincent Xavier, an Indian-American of Keralite origin, the Capitol violence is having political repercussions in India.

BJP MP Varun Gandhi on Friday shared screenshots, purportedly from Vincent Xavier's social media handles, showing him express support for Congress MP Shashi Tharoor. One of the screenshots was of a Facebook post by Xavier showing him in a restaurant with Tharoor in Washington DC in April 2015.

Varun Gandhi tweeted, "Dear @ShashiTharoor, now that we know that this lunatic was such a dear friend of yours, one can only hope that you and your colleagues were not the silent Raised back of hand behind this mayhem.”

Tharoor was emphatic in his response to Varun Gandhi. "Disapproved of it totally. Do you consider yourself responsible for the misguided actions of every well-wisher? I denounce any attempt to bring my country's beloved flag into a shameful American mob," Tharoor wrote.

On Thursday, Varun Gandhi had disagreed with a tweet by Tharoor in which he claimed, "There are some Indians with the same mentality as that Trumpist mob, who enjoy using the flag as a weapon rather than a badge of pride, & denounce all who disagree with them as anti-nationals & traitors."

BJP leader Kapil Mishra tweeted on Friday that Xavier was a "friend" of Tharoor. Mishra tweeted, "Only a fake liberal, pseudo secular,  communist, urban naxal anti India friend of yours can misuse Indian flag like that."

Mishra then asked Tharoor, " Do you disapprove his ideology? His communist, leftist, pro congress, anti India ideology? Ideology that made him disrespect the national flag"

Tharoor responded to Mishra noting he had only met Xavier as he represented an NRI group. Tharoor wrote, "He seems to be on the extreme right, hardly communist. Read his @Twitter bio. In any case i have no connection to his ideology. I only met him as he represented an NRI group, the Indo-American Center in Washington."

Meanwhile, Xavier has told Indian media outlets he had done no wrong and was only participating in a peaceful protest.

Earlier on Friday, Xavier tagged Varun Gandhi and Shashi Tharoor to say, "American patriots - Vietnamese, Indian, Korean & Iranian origins, & from so many other nations & races, who believe massive voter fraud has happened joined rally yesterday in solidarity with Trump. Peaceful protestors who were exercising our rights!"