Taking on the Opposition over its barbs as to why Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) was not taken back once Pakistan was on the back foot following the launch of Operation Sindoor, Union Home Minister Amit Shah Wednesday said that while “PoK had been given away by the Congress, the BJP will bring it back”. He asserted that no terror attacks would henceforth go without a response, adding that terrorism would be brought to an end.
Replying to a special debate on Operation Sindoor and Pahalgam attack in the Rajya Sabha, Shah said that while earlier surgical strikes hit PoK, Operation Sindoor was the first time that India attacked deep inside Pakistani territory.
Recalling the sequence of events from May 7 to May 10 during the hostilities between India and Pakistan, Shah said that Pakistan was no longer in a position to fight once its air bases were attacked. There was no foreign pressure for the ceasefire, but Pakistan went down on its knees, he said, adding that Prime Minister Narendra Modi said if Pakistan stops attacks, India should also do so.
The Opposition members staged a walkout early into Shah’s speech as they demanded that PM Modi should be present in the Upper House, with Leader of the Opposition (LoP) Mallikarjun Kharge saying that the PM not replying to the debate was an insult to the House. Shah hit back, saying that the Business Advisory Committee had decided on a 16-hour debate but agreed that the government would decide who would reply to it.
Commending the security forces for both Operation Mahadev – in which three terrorists involved in the Pahalgam attack were killed Monday – and Operation Sindoor, the Home Minister attacked senior Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan for saying that all the government knew was to name operations on religious basis.
“Har Har Mahadev is not just a religious slogan,” Shah said, adding that the war cry of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj while fighting the Mughals was the same, as it was a “symbol of resistance to all attacks against India”.
He said the Congress saw everything from a Hindu-Muslim lens, underlining that the war cries of most regiments of the army were related to gods.
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Shah also attacked former home minister P Chidambaram for asking about the evidence that the terrorists involved in the April 22 Pahalgam attack were from Pakistan. He quipped that this is how Mahadev acts – the three terrorists involved in the Pahalgam attack were shot in the head the day Chidambaram asked such questions for “vote bank politics”.
Earlier, intervening in the discussion, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar told the Rajya Sabha that there was no third-party intervention in ensuring a ceasefire between India and Pakistan during Operation Sindoor, making it clear that it was not linked to trade as claimed by US President Donald Trump.
Slamming the Congress over its regimes’ apathetic response to the incidents of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, Jaishankar referred to the previous Congress-led UPA government’s “inaction” in the wake of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, saying “there is a Congress normal… and a Modi normal”.
“There is a Congress normal, which I spoke about, and there is a Modi normal… The Modi normal is terrorists are not proxies. Number two, cross-border terrorism will get an appropriate response in our way, at our time. Three, talks and terror will not go together. If there are talks, it will only be about terror. Number four, we will not give in to nuclear blackmail. And number five, terrorism and good neighbourliness cannot go together,” he said.
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The Opposition MPs kept their guns trained on the government, asking it to come clean on President Trump’s claims of brokering the ceasefire.
Targeting the Opposition, Jaishankar said, “Kaan khol ke sun lein, April 22 se June 16 tak ek bhi phone call President Trump and Prime Minister Modi ke beech mein nahi huyi (Listen carefully, there was not a single phone call between PM Modi and President Trump from April 22 to June 16).”
He took a swipe at Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Jairam Ramesh, calling them “China gurus” who took “private tuitions” from Chinese diplomats.
The Congress recently questioned Jaishankar’s visit to China, while Rahul flagged a “two-front challenge” from China and Pakistan while attacking the Modi government.
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Leader of the House and BJP president J P Nadda also mounted a scathing attack on the Congress for its “appeasement” of Pakistan during the UPA regime between 2004-2014 despite multiple terror attacks. He likened the Modi government’s tenure as a period of “full moon” as against “amavasya (dark period)” of the Congress rule.
“We are a responsive, responsible, sensitive, pro-active government who responds as per need of the hour, whereas your (Congress rule) was inactive, lukewarm, non-reactive, non-responsive. Only when you see the full sequence and chronology of the dark period, can you appreciate the period that came afterwards,” he said.
RJD MP Manoj Kumar Jha said the pain of those who had lost their lives in the Pahalgam attack necessitated an apology from the government as it showed that no lessons had been learnt from similar incidents in the past.
He appealed for restoration of a full-fledged statehood for Jammu and Kashmir, and proposed the adoption of a resolution condemning President Trump for claiming credit for the ceasefire. “Come clean, we are with you Prime Minister… I propose a resolution that ‘This House condemns the repeated statements of American President Donald Trump’,” he said.
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CPI(M) MP John Brittas said that under the Modi government a new normal meant the “celebration of failure”. “Pulwama would be the biggest intelligence and security failure in the history of Independent India. There was deliberate, criminal negligence and you mixed it with hubris,” he said.
Brittas recalled the resignation of then Union home minister Shivraj Patil following the 26/11 Mumbai attack and questioned the Modi government over its accountability on the Pahalgam attack.
“They depicted Amit Shah as the second Sardar Patel. Will history judge Shah as morally inferior to Shivraj Patil?” he asked.
– With inputs from Jatin Anand
