There is no hiding to the fact that Congress has repeatedly come up with claims of the six surgical strikes that were carried out during the UPA regime but in reality, there was not even one surgical strike before 2016 according to the Indian army chief.
During an interaction with media, Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh cited the RTI application filed by PTI stated the first surgical strike was in fact executed on September 2016.
Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh (Credits: Livemint)
He said, “As long it’s about the security forces, a response to RTI has said that the first surgical strike was conducted on September 2016. Apart from that, the way the political parties give statements, I wouldn’t want to get into that but they will get their answer through the government but I have given you a fact that was recently answered by the Ministry of Defence.”
In addition to that, he pressed the case that the success of Balakot air strikes that were conducted by the IAF on Pakistani terrorist infrastructures on February 26, in vengeance to the J&K’s Pulwama terror attack that martyred 40 CRPF Jawans on February 14.
He said, “Reaction of the Indian Airforce on 26 February for carrying out air strikes in Balakot terrorist infrastructure was indeed laudable. It was a major achievement wherein. The Pakistanis carried out their air operations very close to the LoC but they were given a befitting reply.”
Congress president Rahul Gandhi on May 4 repeated that his party’s newly revealed claim that as many as six surgical strikes were executed during the UPA regime.
Rahul Gandhi, while addressing a news briefing in the national capital, launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister’s own reaction to the Congress list wherein he equated his opponent party’s claims to that of ‘playing video games.’
Congress chief Rahul Gandhi added, “See, Army isn’t Narendra Modi’s personal property. PM thinks the Army, Navy and Air Force are his personal property. These Surgical Strikes haven’t been done by the Congress they’ve been done by the Army of India. And when Narendra Modi says that the Army’s Surgical Strikes were video games, he’s insulting the Army, not the Congress.”
“And if you want the record, the list is there. So see, this work was done by the Army and it is their job. And we don’t politicise the Army. The PM should have respect enough to not disrespect the Army,” he added.
Let’s take a look at the list of Surgical Strikes that Congress is claiming, as was stated by Rajeev Shukla on Thursday:
The first surgical strike happened on June 19, 2008, in Bhattal Sector of Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch district and the second one on August 30 – September 1, 2011, in Sharda Sector, across Neelam River Valley in Kel.
The third one took place on January 6, 2013, in Sawan Patra checkpost and the fourth one on July 27 – July 28, 2013, at Nazapir Sector. The fifth surgical strike happened on August 6, 2013, in Neelam Valley and the final strike took place on January 14, 2014, (Army Chief, General Bikram Singh’s statement qua surgical strike on December 23, 2013)