New Delhi, Jun 28 (IT): The Congress on Thursday morning accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of trying to exploit the 2016-surgical strikes to boost his own image.
The surgical strikes were conducted by the army in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) in 2016. This was in response to the Uri terror attack where 18 jawans were martyred.
Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said that instead of giving credit to the army, the BJP is trying to drive political mileage from it by crediting PM Modi.
"The BJP shamelessly used the surgical strikes during the assembly election in Uttar Pradesh," he said.
The Congress' reaction comes at a time when the video footage of the 2016-surgical strikes has been released in public domain.
Senior Congress leader and former Union minister Salman Kurshid also criticised the Modi government.
"PM Modi is looking for appreciation for the surgical strike. Well here it is: super execution of clever plan. Now, how about putting an end to terror strikes and ceasefire violations?" he said in a tweet.
Meanwhile, in his press conference, Surjewala said, "The ruling party will have to remember that they cannot make the sacrifice of the Army a tool to garner votes. It is the soldiers who sacrificed their lives, but the BJP chose to glorify Modi ji instead."
He also accused the Modi government of "exploiting" the slogan of 'Jai Jawan Jai Kisan' to "win votes".
He said the government's commitment to the army can be understood from the fact that "the government is not allocating adequate funds to equip it with modern equipments".
Surjewala said the "apathy" and "incapacity" of the Modi Government has resulted in the sacrifice of 146 soldiers, more than 1,600 ceasefire violations by Pakistan and 79 terrorist attacks post September 2016.
He also asked whether former prime ministers Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh were wrong when they used surgical strikes for strategic and security purposes without any chest thumping.
By making public the videos of the strikes, has the government not somehow endangered lives of armed forces participating in them as also civilians living along the Line of Control, he asked.
Meanwhile, responding to the Congress press conference, BJP Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy said, "Just because they (Congress) can't produce such videos,because there's none,we shouldn't do it too? How's this exploiting people's sentiments in BJP's favour?"