Panaji: Hours after national channels aired the footage of the 2016 surgical strike by Indian army in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, former Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has said that the Congress should realise their mistake of doubting about the action of armed forces.
Congress spokesman Sanjay Nirupam had termed the surgical strike as fake, evoking strong response from across the nation. Several national channels last evening released the footage of surgical strike that was conducted when Parrikar as the union defence minister.
“I feel they should realise their mistake. I don’t know whether apology is right word for it. They should, henceforth, in the matter where it concerns national interest and armed forces, they should be very careful in commenting,” Parrikar told Times Now news channel today in response to a question whether Congress should apologise for their statements doubting the surgical strike.
“Very small political point to be scored, cannot be at the cost of the nation and cannot be at the cost of armed forces,” Parrikar, who is currently Goa’s chief minister, said.
He said “to score a point raising question about surgical strike was actually demeaning our armed forces.”
“I feel that these kind of doubts could be expressed by the people who do not consider nation first and the strength of our armed forces. It is demoralizing to the armed forces,” he said.
“Ultimately the exercise was carried out by armed forces and credit goes to armed forces but you cannot deny the credit to the political leadership which took the strong decision,” he added.
Parrikar said that the surgical strike was “an extensive operation which was carried out after extensive planning and preparations”.
Giving credit to his leader Narendra Modi, Parrikar said “it (surgical strike) could happen because (of) the leadership of prime minister (which) was very crucial.”
“It is very easy to say about such actions when they are successful. If there was some loss of life, I think it could have been very damaging thing,” he said.
Parrikar said it was “a courageous and strong leadership which took this decision and prime minister supported the decision right from day one”.
Talking about the toughest part of the decision making process to conduct surgical strike, the former defence minister said “for me while making decision, pm support was there but the toughest part was what if this escalates, if this goes out beyond the intended limited operation and if there is retaliation then what.”
“We had to prepare ourselves for any eventuality. The planning does not talk only about the small operation but detailing about complete fall out in case something goes wrong,” he explained.
Parrikar said that whatever was being shown on television was a small part of the evidence. “What you have show is very small part of the evidence, there is much more to it and (it was) much detailed operation.”
