Congress communications in-charge Jairam Ramesh, who has been consistently questioning the government over Operation Sindoor and the all-party delegations sent by it abroad, triggered a fresh war of words Thursday with remarks suggesting that just as the terrorists behind Palagam had not been caught, the teams holding meetings in world capitals were “roaming” about.
The seven delegations include several leaders of the Congress, with MP Shashi Tharoor leading one of the teams.
Speaking to ANI, Ramesh, who is also a Rajya Sabha MP, said Thursday: “It has been one month since the attack in Pahalgam in April. They (the terrorists) are still roaming here and there… Our MPs are roaming and terrorists are also roaming. We are asking these questions seriously. They (the government) do not answer these questions. The BJP only targets the Congress party. Their attack… should be on the terrorists… on Pakistan. The terrorists should be arrested.”
The BJP slammed Ramesh, saying his remarks “comparing our MPs to terrorists” were “most atrocious”. Party national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla said: “This is how Congress undermines not just our Military Strike (Op Sindoor) by calling it Chut Put (referring to a remark by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge) but also our diplomatic strike.” Why should Parliament not take action against Ramesh, Poonawalla asked.
BJP national spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari posted: “Rahul Gandhi’s right hand Jairam Ramesh compares Members Of Parliament with Terrorists!”
BJP spokesperson and senior leader Gaurav Bhatia, too, reacted to Ramesh’s remarks and said: “The remark is highly condemnable and worrying. It is shameful for the entire nation that an Indian leader would draw a comparison between our MPs and terrorists. Since the success of ‘Operation Sindoor’, it seems that Congress and Rahul Gandhi have been trying to weaken the strong measures taken by PM Modi. This statement is yet another attempt in that direction.”
On Wednesday, the Congress had publicly rebuked Tharoor for suggesting that the surgical strikes under the Modi government were the first of their kind, while addressing a meeting in Panama as part of his delegation. Congress spokesperson Udit Raj said the UPA government too had carried out such strikes but not made political capital from the same, and added: “I could prevail upon PM Modi to declare you (Tharoor) as super spokesperson of BJP, even foreign minister before (you land) in India.”
On Thursday, Congress Media and Publicity Department chairperson Pawan Khera, who had reposted Udit Raj’s post on Wednesday, shared an extract from Tharoor’s book The Paradoxical Prime Minister, which criticised “the shameless exploitation of the 2016 surgical strikes”. “I agree with what Dr Shashi Tharoor wrote about surgical strikes in his book in 2018,” Khera said.
In a sharp reaction Thursday, Tharoor said: “… For those zealots fulminating about my supposed ignorance of Indian valour across the LoC in the past — I was clearly and explicitly speaking only about reprisals for terrorist attacks and not about previous wars… My remarks were preceded by a reference to the several attacks that have taken place in recent years alone, during which previous Indian responses were both restrained and constrained by our responsible respect for the LoC and the IB,” said the Congress MP.
“But as usual, critics and trolls are welcome to distort my views and words as they see fit. I genuinely have better things to do,” Tharoor added.
In his remarks to ANI, Ramesh also targeted the BJP government for not calling a special session of Parliament to discuss the Pahalgam attack and Operation Sindoor, as several Opposition leaders have been demanding.
“It is being heard that a special session can be called on June 25 and 26 because it is the 50th anniversary of the Emergency. An undeclared Emergency has been in force in our country since 2014. He (Modi) wants to call a special session for what happened 50 years ago? To divert attention from today’s questions, they are talking about it… You are quiet on what President Donald Trump is saying. You have given a clean chit to China and you are quiet. Why are you politicising Operation Sindoor when the Opposition is talking of unity?” Ramesh said.
