Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, May 17: Caught on the wrong foot, the BJP has launched a massive attack on the Congress leader and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi for allegedly misrepresenting facts and spreading fake news for questioning the External Affairs minister S Jaishankar statement that India had informed Pakistan at the start of the “Operation Sindoor” that India was targeting only the terrorists installations and not the Pakistani army.
Tagging Mr Jaishankar’s reported statement that India had informed Pakistan of hitting only terror infrastructure “at the start of the Operation Sindoor,” Mr Gandhi on Saturday asked who had “authorised” such a move, and alluding to claims of Indian planes being shot down during the strike on the terror bases, he also asked: “How many aircraft did our air force lose as a result?”
“Informing Pakistan at the start of our attack was a crime. EAM has publicly admitted that GOI [Government of India] did it. Who authorised it? How many aircraft did our air force lose as a result?” Mr Gandhi said in a post on social media platform X. Mr Gandhi also shared a video of Mr Jaishankar in which the External Affairs Minister said “at the start of Operation Sindoor, which was carried out on the intervening night on May 6 and 7, a message was sent to Pakistan that only terror bases were being struck, and not military installations.
“At the start of the operation, we had sent a message to Pakistan, saying we are striking at terrorist infrastructure and we are not striking at the military. So the military has the option of standing out and not interfering in this process. They chose not to take that good advice,” Mr Jaishankar can be heard saying in the video.
However, Mr Gandhi’s claim was an “utter misrepresentation of facts”, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in an official statement. It also claimed that a statement on the timing of Pakistan being informed was being falsely represented.
The BJP Spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari hit back less than an hour later, sharing a fact check by the Press Information Bureau (PIB) and accusing Mr Gandhi of spreading fake news. The PIB, in a post on Thursday, had fact-checked a claim by a journalist in which he alleged that Mr Jaishankar had said India informed Pakistan before the start of Operation Sindoor that it would be hitting terrorist infrastructure in the country.
“The social media post falsely implies from External Affairs Minister @DrSJaishankar’s statement that India informed Pakistan before the start of #OperationSindoor. EAM is being misquoted and he has not made this statement. Remain vigilant and avoid falling for deceptive information,” the PIB said in the post.
The Ministry of External Affairs also issued another statement on Saturday evening and said facts were being misrepresented. “The External Affairs Minister had stated that we had warned Pakistan at the start, which is clearly the early phase after Op Sindoor’s commencement. This is being falsely represented as being before the commencement. This utter misrepresentation of facts is being called out,” the ministry said.
The Press Information Bureau Fact Check Unit also said the Minister was being misquoted, and he had not made any statement about informing Pakistan before Operation Sindoor was launched.
India had struck terror bases in at least nine locations in Pakistan – including the headquarters of the Lashkar-e-Taiba in Muridke and Jaish-e-Mohammed in Bahawalpur – as part of Operation Sindoor, which was a response to the April 22 terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam, in which 26 people were killed.
Pakistan responded by attempting to attack Indian military installations and civilian locations by launching drones and missiles on three successive days, but was thwarted by India’s air defence systems. India, in turn, first took out some of Pakistan’s air defence systems, including in Lahore, and then struck key military bases like the all-important Nur Khan airbase, also known as the Chaklala airbase.
Pakistan then sought a ceasefire last Saturday and India agreed to a pause in hostilities. India has made it clear, however, that it will respond decisively to any terror attack which has its origins in Pakistan.
