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New Delhi: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar vehemently defended "Operation Sindoor" in Parliament on Monday. Both ministers asserted that the armed forces are ever-vigilant to protect national borders and that the operation effectively neutralised nine terror sites, destroying seven of them.
This strong stance came during a special debate in the Lok Sabha on the Operation Sindoor, the response to the Pahalgam terror attack.
Defending the operation, Defence Minister Singh stated that India possesses irrefutable proof of the damage inflicted within Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK) and Pakistan. Meanwhile, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar clarified that the United States played no role in brokering the ceasefire between India and Pakistan in May, refuting claims of any phone calls between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump during that critical period.
"Terrorists will not be treated as proxies, cross-border terrorism will get an appropriate response, terror and talks are not possible together and there will only be talks on terror, not yielding to nuclear blackmail and finally, terror and good neighbourliness cannot coexist, blood and water cannot flow together," Jaishankar outlined India's firm stance on counter-terrorism.
He further asserted that no trade discussions were linked to Operation Sindoor, and the request to halt military action originated from Pakistan via the DGMO channel. Jaishankar also highlighted that India's post-attack diplomacy was so effective that only three out of 190 UN member nations opposed Operation Sindoor.
However, the opposition Congress party's deputy leader in the Lok Sabha, Gaurav Gogoi, questioned the government's policy on Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and cited Donald Trump's repeated claims about his role in the ceasefire. Responding to Gogoi's remarks, in a brief intervention when Jaishankar was speaking, Home Minister Amit Shah criticised the Congress for not trusting their own External Affairs Minister's statement.
Meanwhile, BJP leader Baijayant Jay Panda took a swipe at the Congress, suggesting the party was stifling the voices of its own members, including Shashi Tharoor, who had previously endorsed the government's response to the Pahalgam attack. Speculation remains rife about Tharoor's position within the party following his public support for the operation.
"There are several leaders in your (Congress) party who can speak well... My friend Shashi Tharoor Ji, who is a good speaker, is not allowed to speak by his party," he said, adding that Tharoor had earlier spoken in the interest of the country.
According to sources, the Congress asked its Thiruvananthapuram MP Tharoor if he was interested in speaking during the debate on Operation Sindoor in Parliament, but the latter declined.
There has been intense speculation on whether Tharoor, who led a delegation to the US, among other countries, will be picked as a speaker by the Congress given his enthusiastic endorsement of the government's action following the Pahalgam terror attack, which reportedly soured his ties with the party.
