Zohran Mamdani’s Gujarat Muslim Claim Draws Flak

27th June 2025 at 4:29 PM

1 minute read

Since the scintillating victry Zohran Mamdani - son of award-winning Indian-American filmmaker Mira Nair - in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary, an old video of him attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the 2002 Gujarat riots.

New York : Since the scintillating victry Zohran Mamdani – son of award-winning Indian-American filmmaker Mira Nair – in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary, an old video of him attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the 2002 Gujarat riots and alleging that Muslims were eradicated from his home state of Gujarat has gone viral again.

His remarks came at a candidates’ forum in the run-up to the mayoral elections, in response to a question about whether the mayoral candidates would appear alongside Prime Minister Modi during his visit to New York. Mamdani even likened Prime Minister Modi to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, claiming that Modi should be seen as a war criminal in the same manner as his Israeli counterpart.

In 2022, the Supreme Court upheld the decisions of the Metropolitan Magistrate and later the High Court to accept the top court-appointed Special Investigation Team’s (SIT) clean chit to PM Modi and others in connection with the 2002 Gujarat riots.

However, it was Mamdani’s claim that only a few Muslims remain in Gujarat that drew criticism from several quarters, including Opposition leaders in India, who were quick to fact-check the far-left figure. Many cited the last published census data of Gujarat, according to which Muslims made up at least 10 percent of the state’s population in 2011—amounting to six million.

Leading the charge against Mamdani’s claims, senior Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi, on Thursday, wrote on X: “When Zohran Mamdani opens his mouth, Pakistan’s PR team takes the day off. India doesn’t need enemies with ‘allies’ like him shouting fiction from New York.” Indian-American and New Yorker, Indu Viswanathan — who identifies herself as a liberal on her X profile — lashed out at Mamdani’s “blatant lies,” calling him “a projection of an illiberal, anti-intellectual left-wing authoritarianism that has sunk its teeth into progressive politics.