The Congress once again put its foot into mouth when it claimed that the Indian Army never called its recent across the loC action a surgical strike. Addressing a Press conference here on Tuesday, AICC spokesperson Ajoy Kumar aimed at the BJP and its policies to drive home his point. “It is only a tall claim of the BJP which is the habit of the party and the RSS. The Army never called it a surgical strike if you listen to the statement of DGMO Ranbir Singh. It was in fact a military action which have had taken place on several earlier occasions,” said the former MP on Tuesday.
Contrary to the claims of the party, the DGMO had on September 29 briefed the media about across the loC act. Earlier, while briefing about the cross lOC operation, DGMO lt Gen Ranbir Singh had said, “Based on receiving specific and credible inputs that some terrorist teams had positioned themselves at launch pads along line of Control to carryout infiltration and conduct terrorist strikes inside Jammu and Kashmir and in various metros in other States, the Indian Army conducted surgical strikes at several of these launch pads to pre-empt infiltration by terrorists. The operations were focussed on ensuring that these terrorists do not succeed in their design to cause destruction and endanger the lives of our citizens.”
Kumar did not stop here and claimed that such military actions had taken place during several previous regimes including under Manmohan Singh. “The BJP and RSS people have made it ‘my surgical strike Vs your surgical strike’. In fact all these propaganda is to deviate attention of the people from actual issues as Assembly elections are imminent in UP, Gujarat, Goa and other places. Actually this Government is performing worse on inflation fronts, over 500 jobs are cut every day and 52 farmers are committing suicides daily,” said he and also asked whether the country had become any safer since the military act.
The AICC office bearer also questioned the justification behind providing ‘Y’ category security cover to a senior TV journalist due to threat perception and asked why similar treatments were not given to journalists raising voice against the Government or disagreeing with its policies. Meanwhile, amid resentment inside the party over newly announced State committee, Kumar has said that action may follow during October 21 meeting.
“AICC general secretary BK Hariprasad is coming to attend the meeting and you should wait till that. I believe that the committee had nod of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and if they had any objection there is a forum within the party. Their statements show how committed they are towards the party,” said he.