S. Kumar
New Delhi
Congress president Rahul Gandhi took a potshot at PM Narendra Modi and said that when he talks about UPA government’s surgical strikes and says that they were done in video games, he is insulting the Indian Army.
Addressing the media Rahul Gandhi said, “The Army, Air Force or Navy are not personal properties of Narendra Modi ji like he thinks. When he says that surgical strikes during UPA were done in video games then he is not insulting Congress but the Army.”
Several BJP leaders, including PM Modi and Amit Shah, have time and again slammed the Congress for failing to act against terror whereas BJP conducted surgical strikes and airstrikes inside Pakistani territory.
‘Terrorism has to be dealt with sternly. We deal with it more sternly than Narendra Modi. We do it with strategy unlike Modi who does it in events,’ said Rahul Gandhi, flanked by Congress leaders P Chidambaram and Randeep Singh Surjewala. ‘Modi insulted the Army by saying the surgical strikes during the Congress’s time were video games. We don’t politicize our armed forces,’ he said. ‘The Army is not Modi ‘s personal property… When he says surgical strikes were not done under Congress tenure’ he is disrespecting the Army.
The Congress President today reiterated his challenge for a debate with Prime Minister Narendra Modi over what he called ‘fundamental issues’ like jobs, economy and agriculture, two days before the country votes in the fifth phase of the national election. He also took a swipe at the BJP on the release of Pakistan-based terrorist Masood Azhar back in 1999.
‘Who sent Masood Azhar to Pakistan? Did Congress send him to Pakistan? Which government negotiated with terrorism? Congress didn’t send him there. The reality is that BJP compromises with terrorism,’ Rahul Gandhi told reporters this morning. Meanwhile the chief of the terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed was on Wednesday designated as a global terrorist by the UN Security Council. Masood Azhar and two other terrorists were released by India in 1999 in exchange for passengers held hostage on board IC-814 flight hijacked to Kandahar in Afghanistan.
On the jobs and economy front, Rahul Gandhi said PM Modi has hurt the poor with the shock overnight demonetization in November 2016. ‘We will use NYAY (Congress’s election promise) to remonetise the economy. As soon as people get cash, they will spend it on the market, and the market will manufacture more, so it will boost the economy’.
Gandhi also said that ‘PM has no expertise, and he doesn’t use the experts they have… I told him, let’s debate, let’s debate on jobs, corruption, give me only 10 minutes, wherever you want but not at Anil Ambani’s house’. The Congress alleges that industrialist Anil Ambani’s firm Reliance Defence got undue favour from the Modi government in getting offset contract as part of India’s deal with France’s Dassault Aviation for Rafale multirole jet fighters.