If Indira can be given credit for 1971 war, why not Modi for Balakot: Jitendra Singh

Union minister Jitendra Singh Friday asked if then prime minister Indira Gandhi can be credited for the victory in the 1971 war, why shouldn't Prime Minister Narendra Modi get the credit for a successful air strike in Balakot.

Singh, the Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office, said, that throughout the Lok Sabha election campaign, the Congress and its allies have been attacking the BJP and the PM for allegedly taking credit for the successful strikes by the Indian Air Force on terror camps in Pakistan's Balakot.

Since Independence, whenever there was an armed conflict with a foreign nation, the credit or discredit obviously went to the ruling dispensation and its head, he said.

By the same logic, Indira Gandhi's greatest achievement as PM is still remembered to be the victory in the Indo-Pak war of 1971 which led to the liberation of Bangladesh, he said.

Similarly, the blame for the Himalayan debacle in the Indo-China war of 1962 is even today primarily put on the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Singh was quoted as having said in a statement issued by his office.

If people of India are enthusiastically lauding the PM for the successful Balakot air strikes, which reinforced India's confidence and prestige in the world arena, on the basis of which parameters can the Congress and its allies dissuade the common masses from giving credit to Modi, Singh asked.

Recalling the BJP precursor Bharatiya Jan Sangh's stand during the 1971 war, the minister said, in spite of ideological and political differences, the Jan Sangh offered unconditional and absolute support to the then PM Indira Gandhi in the war against Pakistan.

But, ironically today, the Congress leadership has been so miserably blinded by its lust for power that it has resorted to denigrating the incumbent prime minister, thus indirectly or directly echoing the interests of Islamabad, he alleged.

The Congress and mahagathbandhan parties' unconcealed dislike for Narendra Modi has gone to such limits that it has begun to manifest as dislike for mother India itself, he said.

Talking about Article 370, that grants special status to Jammu and Kashmir, Singh said, Jawaharlal Nehru had himself conceded that it is going to be a temporary provision.

"However, with the passage of time, after 1960s, Article-370 has become a vested interest for Congress and National Conference," he said.