Congress a fringe and not a mainstream party: BJP

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The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday lashed out at the Congress criticism of the video of the September 2016 surgical strikes and termed the principal Opposition party as a fringe and not a mainstream party.

The BJP's statement came a day after the footage of Indian Army's surgical strike from September 2016 was released on June 28, following which the Congress claimed that BJP is using the sacrifice of soldiers to garner votes.

"Congress is no more a mainstream party, but a fringe party. The Congress party is repeatedly giving indication of it not being a main stream political party, but a fringe party/ fringe player in the country," Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said at a press conference at the BJP headquarters here.

"Congress is breaking the morale of the country," Prasad added.

Further hitting out at the Congress, he asserted that the grand old party is working towards strengthening terrorists.

"The people who will be most happy with the statement of Congress leaders are the terrorists in Pakistan. Congress will get a certificate from some terrorist organisations of Pakistan just like Ghulam Nabi Azad got the certificate from Lashkar-e-Taiba," Prasad said.

"The only motive of Congress is to demoralise the Army. We should rise above politics," he said.

Earlier in the day, BJP leader Subramanian Swamy questioned the Congress' claims of conducting surgical strikes during their regime and asked, 'if you did it, why did you hide it?'

Earlier on Wednesday, the video footage of the September 2016 surgical strikes was released in public domain.

The strikes were conducted by the Indian army in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) in response to the Uri terror attack wherein 18 Army personnel were killed.