Ready to discuss Pahalgam attack, Operation Sindoor in Parliament, says Centre
The parliamentary affairs minister's comment came after an all-party meeting convened by the Union government ahead of the Monsoon Session.
The Opposition has demanded discussions on a range of matters. This includes the terror attack in Pahalgam, United States President Donald Trump's repeated claims that he brokered a ceasefire between India and Pakistan during Operation Sindoor and the special intensive revision of voter rolls being conducted in Bihar.
Rijiju said that the government had 'patiently' heard suggestions from Opposition leaders and members of the ruling coalition during the all-party meeting. 'The government will never shy away from discussion unless it is prevented under certain rules or certain provisions,' he said.
The Monsoon Session of Parliament will begin on Monday and conclude on August 21.
Held All Party Meeting ahead of the Monsoon Session 2025. The govt is looking forward to a session marked by dialogue, cooperation and very meaningful outcomes. #Parliament pic.twitter.com/d6TwcOZj2Y
— Kiren Rijiju (@KirenRijiju) July 20, 2025
Opposition seeks Modi's response
Gaurav Gogoi, the Congress' deputy leader in the Lok Sabha, told reporters after the meeting that his party had sought a statement from Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the House on Trump's claim, the security 'lapses' that led to the Pahalgam attack and the revision of electoral rolls in Bihar, The New Indian Express reported.
'It is the moral responsibility of the PM to answer on these issues,' PTI quoted him as saying.
Reiterating the demand on social media, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said that the Opposition had also flagged the situation in Manipur, the restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir and the demand for Sixth Schedule status for Ladakh, among others.
The Ladakhi leadership has sought a constitutional guarantee under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, which guarantees protections over land and a nominal autonomy for the country's tribal areas.
आज मोदी सरकार द्वारा बुलाई गई सर्वदलीय बैठक में मेरे साथी, लोकसभा में कांग्रेस संसदीय दल के उपनेता @GauravGogoiAsm ने भारतीय राष्ट्रीय कांग्रेस की ओर से संसद में चर्चा के लिए निम्नलिखित मुद्दों पर विस्तृत चर्चा की मांग रखी-
1. पहलगाम, ऑपरेशन सिंदूर, जम्मू-कश्मीर के उपराज्यपाल,…
— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) July 20, 2025
Communist Party of India (Marxist) MP John Brittas urged Modi to speak on the Pahalgam attack and Trump's remarks on India-Pakistan ceasefire, The New Indian Express reported.
Aam Aadmi Party MP Sanjay Singh also raised Trump's claims and what he described as the 'poll scam' linked to the Bihar electoral roll revision, the newspaper reported.
Responding to the demand for Modi to address Parliament, Rijiju said on Sunday: 'I want to make it clear the prime minister remains in Parliament except during foreign travel…The prime minister always remains in Parliament, but the prime minister does not remain in the House all the time.'
He added that in Parliament, the Cabinet functions through collective responsibility.
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First Post
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Op Sindoor debate in Parl today, PM Modi says precision strikes a message for terrorists
PM Modi set the tone of the government as the Parliament prepares for a fiery debate on the Pahalgam terror attack and Operation Sindoor. The Prime Minister warned that there will be no safe havens for terrorists read more As the Indian parliament gears up to debate the Pahalgam terror attack and Operation Sindoor, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday that the precision strikes of Pakistani terror camps in May were India's message that there are no safe havens for terrorists and their masters. While speaking at an event in Tamil Nadu's Gangaikonda Cholapuram, the prime minister said that India places the highest priority on its national security. He emphasised that Operation Sindoor has created a new awakening and a new self-confidence across the country. PM Modi was attending the event to honour Chola emperor Rajendra Chola when he made his stance on the matter clear. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD 'The world witnessed India's firm and decisive response to the threat against its sovereignty during Operation Sindoor, and it has sent a clear message: there is no haven for terrorists and enemies of the nation,' the prime minister said in his address. PM Modi sets the tone of the government ahead of the debate Many believe that with this address, the prime minister has set the tone for the government's response to the debate in parliament, which will take place in the Lok Sabha on Monday. Meanwhile, the Opposition is planning to open the front by talking about the big terror attacks under 'PM Modi's watch'. The debate in Lok Sabha is coming after a first week of disruption of Parliament's Monsoon session and is expected to be a fiery one. The two sides have agreed to a marathon 16-hour debate in each House, which invariably stretches longer in practice. Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh is likely to initiate the debate immediately after the question hour in the Lok Sabha. Sources close to the matter told The Times of India that Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will be speaking on the issues amid indications that the PM may intervene to convey his government's 'robust' stand against terrorism. Meanwhile, the Leader of the Opposition in LS and RS - Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge - would lead the charge against the government along with Samajwadi Party's Akhilesh Yadav. It is believed that Congress is planning to attack the government and particularly PM Modi over national security. The Opposition is most likely to point toward the repeated big terror attacks under PM Modi's watch. Since the Pahalgam terror attack, Congress and the opposition have been pointing out that the terrorists singled out the tourists by religion to execute them. Ahead of the debate, Congress also raised the issue of US President Donald Trump's claims of halting Operation Sindoor and calling for a ceasefire between India and Pakistan. On Sunday, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh pointed out that since May 10, Trump has claimed '26 times' that he stopped the operation by 'threatening to cut off trade with India, and claimed that five fighter jets may have been shot down'. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD 'Even though Congress had been demanding a special two-day session of Parliament immediately after Operation Sindoor was abruptly halted, that demand was ignored. Nevertheless, better late than never,' he wrote in a post on X.
The Wire
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Operation Sindoor: Narendra Modi's Image Versus National Interest
Prime minister Narendra Modi should know that seeking the cooperation of opposition parties to project India's case abroad after Operation Sindoor must necessarily be accompanied by showing some respect for the opposition in domestic politics. You cannot seek opposition cooperation to present a unified foreign policy position abroad and continue to treat opposition parties as "enemies" in domestic politics. After all, it was the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat who had advised the Bharatiya Janata Party not to treat the opposition as enemies and also constructive engagement after the BJP's disappointing performance at the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. In this regard has Modi learnt any lessons from the 2024 Lok Sabha results? The basic attitude and approach doesn't seem to have changed. Modi still believes that he can cynically manipulate the opposition through coercive politics without showing any sincerity of purpose. It is common knowledge now that Operation Sindoor, though a limited success, was badly bungled at several levels and mistakes were made which could have been avoided. This is something the government is yet to admit buy responsible Indian military officers have dropped adequate hints in public fora. When an honest military officer cited " restraint from political leadership" as a reason for some Indian fighter planes going down, he was serving the interest of truth. The Modi government's initial silence on the other hand was meant to protect the prime minister's image. Modi was clearly on the backfoot after operation Sindoor and was unable to fully convince his own constituency (including the RSS) that it was an unqualified success. He therefore swallowed his ego for the first time and approached the opposition parties to take part in a joint delegation to present India's case abroad as no country had explicitly condemned Pakistan's role in the Pahalgam terror attack. The Congress party led by Rahul Gandhi has been been raising tough questions around Operation Sindoor and sought a special session of parliament to discuss everything threadbare. Other opposition parties wanted the same. But then the cynical, coercive and manipulative template of politics is embedded in the regime's DNA. The opening of the parliament session was marked by the unprecedented resignation of vice-president Jagdeep Dhankhar. This was the distraction the BJP needed to create chaos and disrupt what might have been a relatively more orderly parliament session with the citizens eager to learn more about the critical issues of national interest such as Operation Sindoor and the stupendous claims by US president Donald Trump on India-Pakistan ceasefire linked to trade talks. The reality is that the president of the world's biggest military power has repeated 25 times that he stopped the India-Pakistan military exchange which was about to spillover to the nuclear domain with the threat of trade. Whether Modi likes it or not, this issue will have to be discussed in parliament. The people of this country cannot be kept in the dark simply because Modi's personal image is to be kept intact. This, in fact, is the nub of the issue. Operation Sindoor and the multiple issues it has thrown up demands an open discussion in parliament to further national interests. But the regime's ecosystem is bent upon creating distractions and confusion to protect Modi's image. So national interest and the ruling ecosystem's attempt to save Modi's image are totally at odds with each other today. This was apparent even during Operation Sindoor. The BJP's media ecosystem projected Modi as a warrior who will not spare Pakistan but the moment the ceasefire happened, Modi's picture was withdrawn and replaced with that of government spokesperson Vikram Misri who announced the ceasefire. This was undisguised manipulation. Similarly, people noticed how Modi used the opposition's cooperation to burnish his own image with his domestic constituency. Even before the opposition delegation had returned, external affairs minister S. Jaishankar was boasting at a public forum that Modi had achieved with the opposition parties what even Indira Gandhi couldn't have done in the 1970s. Thus everything is a personal image building exercise for Modi first, and then something else. One only hopes that Shashi Tharoor and Manish Tiwari have internalised this aspect of Modi's narcissism when they lend unqualified support to Operation Sindoor in "national interest." Don't they see how "national interest" seamlessly converts to Modi's interest in domestic politics? Don't they see how the hyphenation of India with Pakistan, which they speak against in global fora, is paradoxically a key component of Modi's image building politics in the cow belt? They might see more of it in the current parliament session as the ruling party cynically manages everything as it has done in the past. Indeed how Modi treats the opposition parties in domestic politics, as aptly articulated by Mohan Bhagwat himself, is fundamentally the bane of Indian politics and the primary cause of democratic backsliding today. If this is not fixed nothing is fixed.
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Hyderabad: Indigenous weapon systems played a crucial role in the recent Indo-Pak conflict. Operation Sindoor was a well-calibrated military response in May 2025 to the brutal terrorist attack on innocent tourists in Pahalgam in April 2025. High-tech indigenous missile systems, including Akash Air Defence, BRAHMOS, MRSAM, and ULPGM—developed at the missile complex in Hyderabad—played a crucial role in the success of Operation Sindoor. India's missile systems and indigenization policies were undeniably validated during this operation. A one-day workshop on the weapon systems used in Operation Sindoor was held on Saturday at the Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL) in Hyderabad. The workshop began with an exhibition showcasing the sub-systems of various weapons used in Operation Sindoor. Discussions focused on the performance of these indigenous systems and strategies to further enhance their capabilities, ensuring they remain unbeatable in the future. In his welcome address, Dr. G.A. Srinivasa Murthy, Distinguished Scientist and Director of DRDL, outlined the workshop's overall objectives. Lt. Gen. (Dr.) V.J. Sundaram, Former Director of DRDL, emphasized the importance of achieving 100% indigenization for the nation's interests and the need to focus on innovative ideas in advanced high-tech areas, such as cyborgs. Dr. A. Sivathanu Pillai, Founder, Managing Director, and CEO of BrahMos Aerospace, praised the efforts of the Indian Armed Forces and all stakeholders from DRDO and Indian industries in his message. Dr. Prahlada, Former Project Director of the Akash Weapon System, reminisced about the early days of DRDL, from the Integrated Guided Missile Development Program (IGMDP) led by Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam to the present day. He emphasized the importance of preserving the culture and legacy of DRDL while promoting collaboration among personnel as force multipliers. Patrick D'Silva described the remarkable journey of the MRSAM project, and U. Raja Babu, DG (MSS), highlighted that the missile complex is engaged in the design and development of a wide variety of missiles, encompassing multiple platforms and capable of striking targets from underwater to outer space. He stated that the complex is equipped to handle any challenging missile project assigned to it. Dr. G. Satheesh Reddy, Former Chairman of DRDO, congratulated all personnel at DRDO, the Armed Forces, industry partners, production agencies, and quality assurance agencies for their achievements. He urged the scientific community and end-users to collaborate on innovative designs using cutting-edge technologies and surprise elements to achieve success in any future conflicts. Dr. Samir V. Kamat, Chairman of DRDO, commended the organization and urged the missile complex to continue working diligently toward the rapid induction of weapon systems currently undergoing user trials.
