Congress Bowled PM Modi A Full Toss With Debate On Operation Sindoor
The debate was a perfect foil for the BJP government to strut its foreign policy successes and show up Congress's soft-on-terror image
Of all the political vulnerabilities of the Congress party, national security features at the top. And yet, it insisted on a full debate, which the Narendra Modi government gladly accepted. While home minister Amit Shah and MPs like Anurag Thakur served the starters, the Prime Minister himself laid out the main course of humiliation for the Congress in his wrapping-up speech.
Congress scion Rahul Gandhi's strategy has been to try and erode Modi's credibility in his biggest strength areas: personal integrity and national security. Which is why he had gone out on a limb with campaigns like 'Chowkidar Chor Hai" (the guard himself is a thief), alleged BJP corruption in the procurement of Rafale fighter jets, and supposed Chinese incursions in Ladakh.
In all three, Rahul Gandhi fell flat. Indians comprehensively rejected his claims at the ballot. Judges threw out his grievances from the courts.
But Rahul Gandhi has not given up his dream of discrediting Modi on national security. Which is why he has repeatedly questioned the Indian defence forces' successes and parroted Pakistan's unsubstantiated claims that it shot down Indian fighter planes during Operation Sindoor.
Modi underlined how, at a time India received near-unanimous international solidarity, with only three out of 193 UN member nations issuing statements in support of Pakistan, Congress taunted the nation's forces.
'As India becomes Atmanirbhar [economically and militarily independent], Congress has become nirbhar [dependent] on the Pakistani narrative," the PM said.
The debate also gave Modi the chance to compare India's muscular response to external aggression with the Congress-led UPA government's despairing lack of response after 26/11, a blunder that would later prove to be one of the main factors behind the rise of India's new Right.
The PM then made Parliament and the nation count a long list of shameful capitulations from the time of Jawaharlal Nehru's China debacle to his suicidal benevolence towards Pakistan and from Indira Gandhi's failure to get back Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir to the endless terror attacks during the UPA years, which went unpunished.
The debate was a perfect foil for the BJP government to strut its foreign policy successes and show up Congress's soft-on-terror image. Modi mocked Nehru for giving away too much of India's water resources to Pakistan under the lopsided Indus Waters Treaty, even while Pakistan continued to support terrorism. He derided the UPA government's practice of sending dossiers to Pakistan after every terror attack.
And as a subtext to it all, both Narendra Modi and Amit Shah reinforced in the public psyche Congress's Muslim appeasement and minoritism even when it comes to national security and Islamist terrorism. Unless Rahul Gandhi expects to come to power almost solely riding on the minority vote, this monsoon session debate is going to push Congress's chances of a comeback further into the clouds.
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