- Saturday, April 27, 2024
Geert Wilders openly supported the now suspended leader of PM Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party after she made the remarks against the Prophet on a television debate.
By: Shubham Ghosh
GEERT Wilders, a far-right populist leader from the Netherlands who backed Nupur Sharma, a suspended member of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after she made controversial remarks on Prophet Mohammad, was set to achieve a major victory in his country’s parliamentary election held on Wednesday (22), exit polls showed.
The 60-year-old Wilders, who is known for his hard anti-Islam stances and has received death threats several times, saw his Freedom Party (PVV) set to win 37 out of 150 seats.
The party of Mark Rutte, the outgoing prime minister, whose coalition government crumbled in July leading to snap polling, was in the third spot with 23 seats, the exit polls said.
❤️ 37 ZETELS ❤️ pic.twitter.com/kzD6PiiCkQ
— Geert Wilders (@geertwilderspvv) November 23, 2023
Exit polls in the Netherlands generally do not mislead.
Read Geert Wilders interview: ‘Muslim countries are the biggest hypocrites’
Wilders had defended Sharma over her remarks made on a television show and triggered backlashes both within India and abroad, particularly in the Muslim world. The incident saw chaos, including the murder of a Hindu tailor in the north-western Indian state of Rajasthan who had supported Sharma’s words.
The Dutch hardline leader had told an Indian TV journalist last year that minorities in many OIC (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) nations were persecuted and jailed, adding that India should not allow itself to be lectured by them.
In his victory speech after the election results came out, Wilders, who is also referred to as the ‘Dutch Donald Trump’, said he would bring an end to a “tsunami of asylum and migration”.
He rode a wave of anti-immigration sentiment, blaming a shortage of housing on flows of asylum seekers and talking on widespread concerns about the cost of living and the overburdened healthcare system.
The leader, who lives under heavy police protection, has called the Prophet a “paedophile”, Islam a “Fascist ideology” and “backward religion” and also wants to put a ban on the Muslim’s holy book of Quran, in the Netherlands.
A video posted on social media platform X showed a pleasantly surprised Wilders celebrating after TV channels showed his party getting the most number of seats as per the exit polls.
“37 seats,” he wrote in Dutch in a post on the platform.
