MUMBAI, Oct 12: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar today credited the Armed forces and Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the successful surgical strikes carried out across the LoC, saying that operation was done by the Armed Forces, not by any political party.
Addressing an international engineering conference here, Mr Parrikar said even those who were raising questions on the surgical strikes, can claim the credit for this operation.
“One for myself, I can only take the credit at the most, the major share goes to the Prime Minister, but I will at least claim the credit is….decision making ability and planning,” he said.
“I think that should settle the nerve of many people…in understand quite well as I am a politician though not politician by profession,” he said, taking a dig at Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, who accused Mr Modi of hiding behind the blood of Indian soldiers, calling it ‘’Khoon ki dalali”.
The response from the Defence Minister comes at a time, when the Opposition Congress has raised the tempo against, what it alleged, using the surgical strikes for political gains.
Later talking to reporters, Mr Parrikar said the credit goes to the military and 127 crore people of the country.
The Minister said he would not like to comment on the issue further as it may again be projected as “I am politicising the issue”. He said the Director General Military Operations have briefed about the surgical operation and he would not like to add anything to it.
“I will only say that the credit goes to the Armed Forces and the 127 crore janta of the country,” Mr Parrikar said, adding that the debate centred around taking credit, should end now.
The Minister refused to comment on some reports claiming that surgical strikes were carried out by the Army before September 28 also, but not made public by the Government of the day.
“There is a difference between covert operations and overt operation. In covert operation, you don’t own the responsibility. We carried out surgical strikes and asked the Army to brief the country about it,” he said. (UNI)
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel