Hitting out at the Congress for accusing the Modi government of using the 2016 surgical strikes across the LoC as "political fodder" to garner votes, the BJP on Thursday said that by raising such questions the opposition party is breaking the spirit of the armed forces and strengthening the morale of the terrorists.
"The Congress stand is going to gladden the hearts of terrorists and their patrons in Pakistan," senior BJP leader and Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters at the party headquarters here.
"It is also going to give a big campaign handle to the Pakistan establishment that its questioning of the authenticity of surgical strikes has been reinforced by the Congress," he added.
Prasad also said that the opposition party had become so desperate after electoral reverses that it was now aiming at the Indian Army's morale.
"The remarks of Congress leaders will benefit Pakistan and terrorists. The way Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) reacted to Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad's statement will get a certificate for the Congress from LeT or some other terrorist organisation soon," the BJP leader said.
Responding to Congress' charge that the video of surgical strikes was released to politicise the issue, Prasad said no elections were around the corner at present.
"The video was not released during the assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and even Karnataka. Today, there is no election," he said.
"Is demoralising the Army the only motive of the Congress? We should rise above politics," he said.
Prasad said that by making such irresponsible remarks, the Congress is repeatedly giving indications that it is no more the mainstream party but a fringe party in Indian politics.
"It doesn't seem that it is the same party which has ruled the country for 58 years," he said.
The Congress had accused the government of using the 2016 surgical strikes as "political fodder" and listed similar strikes carried out in the last two decades to assert that these were not the first of its kind.
The Congress' comments came a day after the release of video footage of the Indian Army's September 2016 surgical strikes on terrorist launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC) in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
--IANS
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