Her reaction comes soon after the saffron party officially hits out at Rahul Gandhi dubbing him Known sympathizer of terror groups LeT and Jaish-e-Mohammed
New Delhi: On the first anniversary of the Pulwama attack that killed 40 CRPF personnel in Jammu and Kashmir, the ruling BJP and the Congress engaged in a war of words on Friday. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi questioned who benefited from the attack and the outcome of the inquiry that followed the terrorist act. On this BJP MP, Meenakshi Lekhi raked up the assassinations of former Prime Ministers.
Responding to Rahul Gandhi’s three questions, Lekhi made a remembrance of India’s darkest periods when Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi were assassinated in 1984 and 1991, respectively. Lekhi said, “Words used by Rahul Gandhi on Pulwama attack are shocking. Congress needs to tell us who benefited from Indira Gandhi’s death. Who benefited from Rajiv Gandhi’s death?”
Her reaction comes soon after the saffron party officially hits out at Rahul Gandhi dubbing him Known sympathizer of terror groups LeT and Jaish-e-Mohammed.
Gandhi posted three questions through tweeting he said that needed to be asked while we remember the slain soldiers: who benefitted the most from the attack, what is the outcome of the probe into the attack and who in the central government has been held accountable for the security lapses that allowed the attack?
Gandhi’s tweet referred to how the BJP had captured the posy-Pulwama political narrative around security and nationalism and how it paid dividends in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
The BJP’s retort came almost immediately after Gandhi paid homage to the 40 slain CRPF personnel killed in the attack, questioned who benefitted the most from the attack and what was the outcome of the inquiry into it.
BJP spoke person GVL Narasimha Rao tweeted, “When the country is paying homage to martyrs of dastardly Pulwama attack, @RahulGandhi, a known sympathizer of LeT & Jaish-e-Mohammad, chooses to target not just the government but security forces as well. Rahul will never question the real culprit, Pakistan. Shame on you!”
Following the massive victory of the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, political experts suggested that the Balakot strike carried out by the Indian Army to eliminate terror camps in Pakistan after the Pulwama attack helped the party in polls.
Lekhi’s statement in her perspective, after the assassination of former PM Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards — Beant Singh and Satwant Singh – the Congress won 414 seats out of 533 seats in the general elections of 1984. Rajiv Gandhi became the new Prime Minister of the country riding on a pool of sympathy votes.
In 1991, a day after the first round of election took place on 20 May 1991, former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated while campaigning for Margatham Chandrasekar at Sriperembudur. The remaining election days were postponed until mid-June and voting finally took place on June 12 and 15.
The 1991 results varied greatly between phases as the Congress party did poorly in the pre-assassination constituencies and swept the post-assassination constituencies. The result brought in a Congress-led minority government led by P. V. Narasimha Rao, a politician who had announced his retirement from politics.
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