New Delhi: Asserting that the nation is safe under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday accused the Congress of weakening the fight against terrorists and questioned if the party should be trusted by the electorates in the ensuing Lok Sabha elections.
In a blog titled–‘Prime Minister Modi’s Evolving National Security Doctrine,’ Jaitley said the Congress is one with the Central government on condemning the ghastly terror attack in south Kashmir’s Pulwama but is disturbed about the air strike in Balakot in Pakistan and hence the party “repeatedly rubbishes the surgical strikes.”
“It contends that they have either taken place in the past also or alternatively they never took place under Prime Minister Modi. On the air strikes, their conduct is even more dubious. While giving lip sympathy to the Indian Air Force for the first two days, they started a multi-pronged attack. They questioned the success of the strikes. They started demanding proof that terrorists had died at Balakot,” Jaitley said in the blog.
Also Read: Lok Sabha elections choice between PM Narendra Modi and chaos: Arun Jaitley
“They even contended that the strike had taken place not against terror but to ensure BJP’s victory in the forthcoming elections. This was a self-goal by the Congress in domestic politics. This was also playing into the hands of Pakistan where statements of Congress leaders, including Rahul Gandhi, were played out on television channels in Pakistan. Pakistan Government cited these statements to bolster their own falsehood,” he added.
Underlining that Jammu and Kashmir was a “foremost victim of terror” and its people are the “worst sufferers,” Jaitley said that the Congress had no structured plan during ten years of UPA on how to deal with the problem. “Prime Minister Narendra Modi inherited this as a legacy issue. He experimented the conventional method of trying to soften the relationship with Pakistan in a hope that wiser sense would prevail, but Pakistan responded with Pathankot, Uri, and Pulwama,” he said.
“He encouraged the mainstream political parties of the Valley to be a part of the national coalition in Kashmir but unfortunately the double talk of support from Delhi and the pressure from the Jamat-e-Islami were to the detriment of anti-separatists policy,” Jaitley elaborated. Continuing his tirade against the Congress, the Finance Minister wrote, “When the Batla House encounter took place and the terrorists were killed, the Congress leaders dubbed it as a fake encounter. The terrorists they claimed were innocent.”
“When the guilty of the 1993 Mumbai bomb blast, 26/11 attack on India’s commercial capital and the Parliament attack case were to be executed, many Congressmen started appealing for amnesty. The ‘disruptionists’ who prefer to call themselves ‘Left liberals’, fought a legal battle to save the terrorists.”
Jaitley asserted that the “low point” in Congress party’s attitude towards separatism and terror was reached when a combination of separatists, jehadis and Maoists ganged up to raise slogans on ‘Desh ke tukde tukde’ at New Delhi’s JNU, where Congress President Rahul Gandhi “stood shoulder to shoulder with them to defend their right of free speech to champion the cause of breaking India into pieces.”
“He deviated from the Congress legacy of not associating with these extremists. Once the identification of Congressmen with the Maoists and the separatists was signalled by Rahul Gandhi, it was natural for Congressmen and their friends to support the cause of ‘urban Maoists’ who were allegedly conspiring to assassinate India’s Prime Minister,” Jaitley said.
He went on to add: “It is, therefore, not surprising that the new Government in Chhattisgarh, the hub of Left-wing extremism, has now taken several decisions, including the appointment of committees to effectively examine the ‘misuse’ of police powers against the Maoists.” Jaitley went on to say that the battle against terror has been weakened on account of Congress party and its ‘mahagathbandhan’ friends diluting the fight for the “sake of votes.”