Former union minister Arun Shourie tore into the government for releasing the video footage of the September 2016 surgical strikes that he said was being used for political propaganda purposes ahead of the 2019 general elections. He added that he never doubted on the genuineness of the strike.
“I never had any doubt on the fact that the strike took place. But to use it for propaganda & to boast about it that ‘my chest is 56 inch & I gave a befitting reply to Pakistan’, is wrong,” said Arun Shourie to a news agency.
The footage was released by the government yesterday after a stinging jab from Mr Shourie who this week called the surgical strikes against Pakistan “farzical”, or a farce. The former union minister says he had used the phrase for the government, not the army.
“Imagine a situation if strikes would have happened during Atalji’s time & people would have asked him, he would have had a twinkle in his eye & said ‘Really a strike has happened?’” he further said.
“The way you (government) have used the strike for propaganda purposes, for building a self-image reduces an essential instrument to a farce. A strike became a farcical strike,” Mr Shourie told a news source, convinced that the decision to release the video is “all election driven”.
Attacking the Congress party on Thursday Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju said why there was politics over the valour of the Indian Army? Congress’ language was of those who want to divide the country, he said. “How shameful that the Congress party was first asking for proof of Surgical Strike from the Army and now they are doing politics over it,” he further stated.
Indian troops crossed the Line of Control in September 2016 to take out terror launch pads in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir, weeks after Pakistani terrorists attacked an army base in Uri in Kashmir in the deadliest attack on the military. 19 soldiers were killed. Sources said the footage was released on the instructions of the Prime Minister’s Office.
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