PM Modi: No world leader told India to stop Op Sindoor, Cong shedding tears with terrorists

NEW DELHI: Reiterating the government’s stand that the ceasefire on May 10 was agreed to after Pakistan pleaded for one, Prime Minister Narendra Modi asserted on Tuesday that no world leader had asked India to stop Operation Sindoor.

Responding to the two-day debate on Operation Sindoor and the Pahalgam terror attack in the Lok Sabha, PM Modi lashed out at the Opposition and Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi, who asked why he had not rebutted US President Donald Trump’s repeated claim of getting India and Pakistan to agree to a ceasefire.

In a blistering attack on the Congress for “importing issues from Pakistan”, PM Modi said the opposition party is joining terrorists and their masterminds in shedding tears after the victorious Indian military action. He said the government got world’s support but sadly none from the Congress.

Replying to an over 16-hour discussion in the Lok Sabha, Modi rebutted the Opposition’s charge over President Trump’s repeated claims of mediating “ceasefire”, saying he had told US Vice President J D Vance on May 9 night that Pakistan will pay dearly for any attack on India.

In his 102-minute speech, the prime minister lauded India’s military action as a “vijayotsav” (victory celebration) and told the House amid cheers from the treasury benches that he was presenting the “stand of Bharat”.

“India destroyed Pakistan’s military strength between May 9 and May 10. Pakistan now clearly understands that India’s response will always get bigger and that India can do anything if it engages in any misadventure in future,” he said, clarifying that Operation Sindoor is continuing. leader also said Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had erred by comparing Operation Sindoor with the 1971 war between the two countries. Beginning his speech during the debate on Operation Sindoor in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, Gandhi extended his condolences to those who were killed in the Pahalgam terror attack and said the opposition INDIA bloc decided, as one unit, to back the forces and the government.

Rahul Gandhi accused PM Modi of using the armed forces to protect his image after the Pahalgam attack and dared him to rebut US President Donald Trump’s India-Pakistan ceasefire claims.

“If Modi ji has even 50 per cent of the courage that Indira Gandhi had, then clearly he must say in Parliament - Donald Trump is lying,” he said. Gandhi also said that if the government had listened to his statement in Lok Sabha a few months ago on China and Pakistan fusing together, they would “not have lost five aircraft” during Operation Sindoor.

He claimed the government revealed sensitive details about Operation Sindoor to Pakistan, soon after it was launched.

“Yesterday, I watched Rajnath Singh ji’s speech. He said that Operation Sindoor began at 1:05 in the morning and lasted for 22 minutes. He said a very shocking thing: that at 1:35, we called Pakistan and told them that we had hit non-military targets and we didn’t want escalation. These are the words of the Defence Minister of India,” he said.

“You told Pakistan exactly what you would do: that you would not target military establishments and you didn’t want escalation. That’s surrender. Immediate surrender in 30 minutes,” Gandhi said, slamming the government.

He cited remarks by Defence Attache in Indonesia, Group Captain Shiv Kumar, to claim that there were constraints by the political leadership to not attack the Pakistani military establishment and their air defences.

He alleged that the goal of this exercise was to “protect the image of the PM” as he had “blood of Pahalgam victims on his hands”.

Gandhi said this government is clueless about what deterrence and political will means, and gave Indira Gandhi’s example when Pakistan was broken into two parts in 1971.

“I said in this House, three-four months back and they laughed at me. I said please understand that India’s biggest foreign policy challenge has been to keep Pakistan and China separate. And I said here that I am sad to say that you have destroyed the single biggest goal of foreign policy. China and Pakistan are fused,” Gandhi said.

He said that what happened during Operation Sindoor is that the government of India thought it was fighting Pakistan but soon realised suddenly that they were fighting China and Pakistan both. He cited Deputy Chief of Army Staff Lieutenant General Rahul R Singh remarks on China’s support to Pakistan during Operation Sindoor. Gandhi asserted that the armed forces should be used with freedom, saying if one wants to unleash a tiger, it should be freed.

“Do not tie his hands behind his back. Go all the way, defeat them once and for all. Don’t have President Trump tell you 29 times that he stopped the war. Have the courage to tell him, ‘no, to hell with you, you can’t stop any war, we are going to fight’,” the former Congress president said. The point is that we’re now facing a Chinese-Pakistani fusion right in front of us, he said.

“This is a very dangerous time, and we can’t afford a Prime Minister who lacks the courage to utilise the army the way it has to be used. We can’t afford a Prime Minister who doesn’t have the guts to say from here that Donald Trump is a liar, that he didn’t stop India from fighting and is lying about the planes,” Gandhi said. In his remarks, Gandhi also referred to a statement of Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan, who said in an interview that India rectified its tactics and hit deep inside Pakistani territory after suffering losses during Operation Sindoor.

Gandhi asserted that the Pahalgam incident was a brutal attack that was organised and orchestrated clearly by the Pakistani state.

Referring to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s remarks in the House, Gandhi said he did not tell people that no country condemned Pakistan particularly.

“When UPA government was there Pakistan was condemned for terrorism,” he said. Gandhi slammed PM Modi for not speaking out when Trump hosted the “architect of the Pahalgam attack”, Pakistan Army Chief Asim Munir, for lunch.