MEA says tech error after Meenakshi Lekhi denies signing answer on Hamas

New Delhi: Minister of State for External Affairs & Culture Meenakshi Lekhi said on Saturday that she did not approve any answer to a question in the Lok Sabha over declaring Hamas a terrorist organisation, resulting in the opposition calling for a probe.

The Ministry of External Affairs later clarified that there was a technical error in the attribution of the answer, which it said was given by Minister of State V Muraleedharan.

"You have been misinformed as I have not signed any paper with this question and this answer," Lekhi said in response to a post on microblogging site X on the Lok Sabha question on declaring Hamas a terrorist organisation.



Lekhi said an "inquiry will reveal the culprit". The matter has been raised with the foreign secretary, she said.

The ministry said the unstarred question in the Lok Sabha answered on December 8 "needs a technical correction in terms of reflecting Shri V Muraleedharan as the minister of state replying ... This is being suitably undertaken."

Unstarred questions do not call for an oral response and the ministers to whom they are addressed give a written answer.

Sources told ET that such errors are not uncommon, but the minister's public outcry is intriguing as such matters are generally settled internally.

The question in the Lok Sabha was raised by Congress MP Kumbakudi Sudhakaran. He asked whether the government had any proposal to declare Hamas a terrorist organisation in India; if so, the details thereof and if not, the reasons for that. He had also asked whether Israel had raised any demand with the Indian government to declare Hamas a terrorist organisation.