New Delhi: Dubbing former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s claims of having conducted several surgical strikes as ‘unknown and invisible’, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the Congress was ‘afraid’ of celebrating the ‘diplomatic victory’ and was thus making claims of having conducted surgical strikes.
Earlier, in an interview with the Hindustan Times, Singh had said that surgical strikes were conducted by the UPA government too but were not used for ‘electoral gains’.
Jaitley said the Congress was claiming surgical strikes now only to save political face in light of Azhar’s listing as a global terrorist.
“This is also the reason why they are now claiming that they also conducted surgical strikes. They were invisible and unknown surgical strikes.”
Singh had termed the politicisation of military operations for electoral gains ‘shameful’ and said the armed forces had free hand to counter security threats under the Congress government as well.
“Multiple surgical strikes took place during our tenure as well. For us, military operations were meant for strategic deterrence and giving a befitting reply to anti-India forces than to be used for vote garnering exercises,” Singh said.
Singh and Jaitley’s statements come in the light of the UN Security Council blacklisting of the JeM chief. In what is being interpreted as a diplomatic win for India, China finally dropped its objection to the move, leading to Azhar being listed as a terrorist.
China, a Pakistan ally, had been blocking India’s efforts to list Azhar as a terrorist, even though JeM itself had been blacklisted by the UN Security Council in 2001. Azhar is now subject to an arms embargo, travel ban and asset freeze.
JeM has conducted multiple high profile terror attacks on Indian soil, including the February 14 terror attack in Pulwama which claimed the lives of 40 Central Reserve Police Force personnel, which sparked India’s latest efforts to list Azhar as a UN-designated terrorist.
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