New Delhi:Accusing the Narendra Modi government of politicising the surgical strikes carried out by the Indian Army, the Congress on Thursday said the BJP used it as a tool to garner votes.
Talking to reporters here, AICC media in charge Randeep Surjewala said, ''Let the ruling dispensation remember that the blood and sacrifice of our brave soldiers cannot become a political vote garnering tool for the Modi government and the BJP. The surgical strikes of September 28-29, 2016 was shamelessly politicised by the BJP for the March 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections.
The BJP went to the extent of organising 'Samman Samaroh' of the then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar in Agra - Lucknow besides running a high voltage publicity campaign, including innumerable press conferences/advertisements/ posters/hoardings, giving credit of surgical strikes to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.''
Accusing the BJP of trashing every tradition of restraint by belligerent chest thumping to claim credit of surgical strikes with an eye on political and electoral gain, Mr Surjewala said, ''None less than the BJP president Amit Shah dishonored the 70-year-long history of bravery and sacrifice of our Armed forces by making a disgraceful statement on October 7, 2016 in a press conference at Delhi that 'Indian Army had crossed the LoC for the first time in 68 years', besides publically declaring that the BJP will encash the surgical strikes in the entire country. The BJP even paid no heed to the advice of Ms Seema, widow of Shaheed Subodh and Ms Dharamvati, widow of Shaheed Hemraj to not politicise the 'sacrifice of soldiers'.''
The comments by the Congress came shortly after a video of the surgical strikes was aired by a news channel on Wednesday.The video shows how paratroopers from Special Forces, who carried out the strikes in PoK specifically, picked the targets and bombarded them with grenades and high-tech guns with the aim of not leaving any survivor.
In the video, it can be seen how commandos of the Special Force, acting on specific information about the location of terrorists, targeted and neutralised them.Nearly ten days after terrorist attack on the Army base camp in Uri that left 18 jawans dead on September 18, 2016, India carried out surgical strikes in PoK.
The paratroopers of the Special Force were airdropped at the LoC, from where they crossed over to the Pakistani side at around 1230 hrs on September 29.(UNI)