Congress: BJP leaders should apologise for insulting Pahalgam attack martyrs, defence forces

New Delhi: The Congress on Sunday said that the Bharatiya Janata Party leaders were ‘shamelessly and desperately’ trying to give the entire credit for the success of the Operation Sindoor to prime minister Narendra Modi instead of the country’s defence forces.

The party demanded an apology from the prime minister and the BJP president for the party (BJP) leaders allegedly repeatedly and consistently insulting the martyrs, their families and the defence forces.

Addressing a press conference at the party office here, the All India Mahila Congress president Alka Lamba played a few videos of the BJP leaders, including an MP, Madhya Pradesh deputy chief minister, and a minister, in which they are ‘clearly heard’ insulting our defence forces and martyrs and their families.

BJP Rajya Sabha MP’s comments

In the latest salvo, the Congress said that BJP Rajya Sabha MP from Haryana, Ram Chander Jangra, said that the wives of the tourists killed in the Pahalgam terror attack lacked the courage and spirit of warrior women. He claimed that if the women had fought back, casualties would have been lower.

She also referred to the alleged abuse and trolling that the foreign secretary Vikram Misri was subjected to by the BJP’s troll army, just because he was putting forth the government’s point of view. Similarly, she pointed out how Himanshi Narwal, the widow of martyr Lieutenant Vinay Narwal, who was martyred in Pahalgam, was trolled and abused just because she had appealed for harmony.

The Mahila Congress president said, “Even more shocking was the silence of the prime minister and the BJP leadership, including its president.” She said, while the law will take its own course as an FIR has been registered in one of the cases and that too at the instance of the high court and an SIT has been constituted on the orders of the Supreme Court. “But what moral ground does the BJP have in defending and protecting its leaders like MP deputy chief minister Jagdish Devda, minister Vijay Shah and MP Ram Chander Jangra?” she asked.

Lamba observed that all these leaders seem to have been inspired by the Prime Minister himself, who had said on record that a trader is braver and courageous than a soldier. She also played an alleged recording of the prime minister saying so.

Demand for an all-party meeting on Operation Sindoor

Reiterating her party’s demand for an all-party meeting to be chaired by PM Modi, she also sought the convening of both houses of the Parliament.

She asked, “If the opposition MPs can be sent to foreign countries to explain India’s position to the world, why can’t a Parliament session be convened at home, so that the country can know about the success of the Operation Sindoor?”

She also referred to the complaints of the people living along the Line of Control near Poonch in Jammu and Kashmir, who allegedly said that prime minister Narendra Modi had not even mentioned them in his speeches.

Lamba said out, in contrast, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi had visited Jammu and Kashmir twice during this period to express solidarity and support with the people, particularly the victims of the terror attack and Pakistan army shelling.