Jubilation in BJP as Operation Mahadev dampens opposition ammunition
Narendra Modi
said.
The remark came amid jubilation in BJP over the success of Operation Mahadev which blunted the offensive the opposition had planned to corner the govt over the April massacre of tourists by jihadi terrorists who marked the victims out on basis of their faith.
The build-up to the debate had seen the opposition targeting the govt for failing to nab the Pakistani terrorists, and looked set to sharpen the line on Parliament's floor.
On Tuesday, a sense of satisfaction was writ large on the face of
Amit Shah
as he detailed the steps taken by the agencies to verify that the three Pakistanis killed in Dachigam sanctuary outside Srinagar were indeed the killers of Pahalgam.
He also disclosed that his instruction to security forces in the immediate wake of the mass killings was to ensure that the terror troika did not cross over into PoK.
Opposition on Tuesday did question the govt over "intelligence failure" and absence of security arrangements for the tourists, but the taunts paled before the full-scale offensive that had seemed on the cards and would have been unleashed if Lashkar jihadis had escaped or remained elusive.
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"The opposition would have been far more aggressive," an NDA source said.
As the treasury benches greeted Shah's announcement with chants of "Har Har Mahadev", they were also helped by P Chidambaram's remark in an interview that the Pahalgam attackers could very well be homegrown terrorists. "Why are you giving a clean chit to Pakistan?" asked Shah who also said the Congress neta's interview was tantamount to questioning the very rationale of Operation Sindoor.
Chidambaram was not the only opposition neta to have figured prominently in the Lok Sabha debate while not being present in the House. His colleague in the UPA cabinet Salman Khurshid also featured in a big way, with Shah recalling his statement that Sonia Gandhi had broken down after seeing the photograph of Indian Mujahideen terrorists who were killed in an encounter with Delhi Police at Batla House.
"It would have made sense if she had shed tears for Mohan Chand Sharma," the home minister said in a reference to the celebrated police officer who was killed in the encounter with IM bombers.
"I have Salman Khurshid's interview saved on my mobile," Shah said to rebut those from Congress who questioned the veracity of his statement.
Speaking later, Priyanka Gandhi responded to Shah by saying the home minister should also have spoken about Sonia Gandhi's tears after the assassination of her father.
But the Prime Minister brought the issue to the fore once again by referring to the statement of Khurshid and by linking the spate of terror attacks under UPA to Congress's politics of "appeasement".
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