NEW DELHI: Congress on Thursday came out with a list of six anti-terror surgical strikes conducted during the United Progressive Alliance regime.
During the press conference, Congress leader Rajiv Shukla released details of the list when the strikes were carried out.
This has come a day after former PM Manmohan Singh said in an exclusive interview to Hindustan Times that multiple such operations had taken place during his government’s tenure.
“…our armed forces were always given a free hand to operationally respond to every threat. Multiple surgical strikes took place during our tenure too. For us, military operations were meant for strategic deterrence and giving a befitting reply to anti-India forces than to be used for vote garnering exercises,” former PM Manmohan Singh said in the interview.
Mocking the Congress’ claim at an election rally in Rajasthan’s Sikar, PM Modi accused the grand old party of telling “lies” and said the party does surgical strikes only “on paper”.
“Pehle upeksha, fir virodh, ab me too me too (They initially rejected it, then opposed and now saying ‘me too’ ),” Modi said at an election rally here.
The battle over surgical strikes between the two parties comes in the middle of the general election in which national security has emerged as a key point of debate between the two sides.