RIYADH, 31 August — A senior Indian leader warned the New Delhi government on its growing relations with Israel, saying that the Indo-Israel relations promoted by the right-wing BJP government will harm New Delhi’s ties with the Arab world including the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

Muhammad Ali Ashraf Fatmi, general secretary of All India Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), “cautioned” New Delhi on this issue, while defending Palestinians and seeking a comprehensive peace in this region at a press conference on Wednesday evening. Fatmi is also a member of the Central Waqf Council.

Referring to the recent accusations on India seeking to develop relations with the Jewish state, Fatmi said that the Indian people have all along been supporting the Palestinian cause. India, he said, has been deeply committed to the Arab causes and India is one of the first countries to give diplomatic status to the Palestine mission in New Delhi. He reiterated the RJD’s support for the Palestinian cause.

Though all political parties backed the Palestinian cause,  he said that “the BJP government sometimes sports different masks for different occasions.” He also said the BJP government has indulged in a series of corruption and scandals as exposed by media and investigating agencies including Tehelka.com.

Asked as how stable is the Bihar government, Fatmi, who was twice elected as member of parliament from Darbhanga constituency of Bihar on the RJD ticket, said that “our government has always been stable.

The Rabri Devi government, he said, has been instrumental in restoring social equality, uplifting minorities, especially Muslims, and stopping communal riots.

Referring to his efforts to help commercial and educational projects in the poverty-stricken Bihar, he said that the Central Waqf Council has launched a multimillion rupee interest-free loan grant program to assist Muslims to build residential and commercial complexes in the country.

“The Council has embarked on the construction of three industrial training institutes (ITIs) in Bihar, which will run short-term vocational courses,” he aaded.

Fatmi said that, in cooperation with a group of social activists, he has launched a SR5 million residential CBSE-affiliated school project in Bihar.

He said that Rabri Devi, Bihar’s chief minister, and Laloo Prasad Yadav, RJD president, will jointly lay the foundation stone of the project in Darbhanga district later this year.