Uttarakhand Congress questions timing of surgical strikes

Accusing BJP of politicising the surgical strikes, Congress in Uttarakhand on Tuesday asked whether they were carried out by the party and its affiliated outfits and questioned the timing of the operation saying if it was carried out a little earlier India would not have lost 19 soldiers in Uri.

The state unit of Congress also questioned the justification of BJP indulging in a "poster campaign" in the wake of the strikes and asked whether it was carried out by the party and its affiliated organisations.

"The BJP is out to politically encash the surgical strikes. If it were not so, the party would not have put up the kind of posters it has put up everywhere in the wake of the strikes.

"Surgical strikes were conducted during previous Congress government also but were never politically exploited like this," Pradesh Congress president Kishor Upadhyay said in a letter to Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar.

Expressing concern over the atmosphere being built by the BJP across the country in the wake of the surgical strikes, Upadhyay said it was sad that in the credit grabbing race the party had forgotten all about the kin of the 19 soldiers.

He also took exception to Congress being put in the dock for allegedly not treating the security forces properly.

"The Congress has always honoured the security forces and it should not be put in the dock over the issue," he said.

"Were the surgical strikes carried out by BJP and affiliated outfits? Why weren't they conducted even earlier? If they were carried out earlier, the martyrdom of 18 soldiers in Uri could have been averted," he said.

Charging BJP leaders with vying with each other to garland themselves for the success of surgical strikes, he expressed surprise that the Defence Minister himself had been part of several such celebratory functions.

On BJP's poster campaign following the surgical strikes, he said neither Lal Bahadur Shastri after 1965 war nor Indira Gandhi after the 1971 war took resort to such methods to politically encash the victories.