BJP-Congress spar over surgical strikes video

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy on Thursday questioned the Congress' claims of conducting surgical strikes during their regime and asked, 'if you did it, why did you hide it?'

Swamy's statement comes a day after the footage of Indian Army's surgical strike from September 2016 was released on June 28, following which Congress blamed BJP of using the sacrifice of soldiers to garner votes.

"Just because they (Congress) cannot produce such videos, because there is none, we also shouldn't do it? How is this exploiting people's sentiment in BJP's favour? If you did it, why did you hide it?," Swamy told ANI.

 

"It's just like the old saying 'grapes are sour'," he added.

Meanwhile, Congress has continued to attack the BJP over surgical strikes, party leader Randeep Surjewala while interacting with media on Thursday accused BJP of "shamelessly" using the surgical strikes for their benefit during the assembly election in Uttar Pradesh.

"Prime Minister Modi's government is exploiting the slogan of 'Jai Jawan Jai Kisan' and trying to win votes using Surgical Strikes. The nation wants to ask them did Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh boast of the success of Army operations during their tenure, just like them?" Surjewala said.

The Congress leader said the ruling party cannot make the "sacrifice of the army a tool to garner votes for themselves." He further said that BJP is glorifying the prime minister for surgical strikes, which was actually carried out by the Indian Army.

Lauding the Indian Army over surgical strikes, Defence Expert Rahul Jalali asserted that the current video proves how the security forces acted against terror launch pads.

"This video shows how much damage the Indian Army did. Probably, it is to prove that how effective this surgical strike was and how it damaged militants and their installations. It's a well-known fact that Army played an important role in keeping our country safe," Jalali told ANI.

Earlier on Wednesday, the video footage of the September 2016 surgical strikes was released in public domain.

The strikes were conducted by the Indian army in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) in response to the Uri terror attack wherein 18 Army personnel were killed.