Operation Sindoor debate in Parliament - Marvellous speeches of Congress MPs led by LoPs

• Adv. Rajiv Sharma

When Leader of Opposition (LoP) Shri Rahul Gandhi thundered in the Parliament during discussion on ‘Operation Sindoor’ to articulate that the Modi government had no political will to teach Pakistan a stern lesson, the BJP MPs were stunned into silence, as the LoP methodically exposed the cowardice shown by the Prime Minister and the political leadership of the BJP, layer-by-layer, before the people of this country.

In fact, the speeches of all the Congress MPs were remarkable, but those of Kharge ji, Rahul ji, and Priyanka Vadra ji stood out for special mention. During his speech in Lok Sabha, Shri Rahul Gandhi emphatically asserted that the Modi government had imposed certain constraints on our armed forces and denied them the freedom of operation and freedom of manoeuvre during the ‘Operation Sindoor’. He accused the government of sending our forces into the battlefield after tying their hands behind their backs. Due to such a cowardly approach of the government, the security forces had to suffer losses.

To establish his point, Shri Rahul Gandhi relied upon the statement of a serving officer of the Indian Armed forces Captain Shiv Kumar, who is India’s Defence Attache to Indonesia. He had stated that India had lost some aircrafts and that happened only because of the constraints given by the political leadership to not to attack air defence and military targets (of Pakistan). Shri Gandhi was extremely upset at the timidity of the political leadership in the government, which asked the Indian forces to go into enemy territory without giving them a free hand. He said, “If you want to fight, then go all out and defeat them once and for all. We cannot afford a Prime Minister who does not have the courage to use the Army the way it has to be used. We need a Prime Minister who frees the Army, the Airforce like Indira Gandhi did. “

Lavishly praising the Indian Armed forces for making the victory possible despite weaknesses at the government level, he said that the valour, bravery, and zeal of the armed forces to make supreme sacrifice for their motherland is unmatched.

When Shri Rajnath Singh, the Union Defence Minister, tried to compare ‘Operation Sindoor’ with 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, Shri Rahul Gandhi retorted, “But there was political will in 1971. The US seventh fleet was on the way towards India, and then the Prime Minister said, ‘We will do what we want to.’ The Superpower was coming, but the PM (Indira Gandhi) said, ‘We don’t care.’ On the contrary, during ‘Operation Sindoor’, the Director General of Military operation was directed to ask for a ceasefire with Pakistan, just 30 minutes after ‘Operation Sindoor’ began. “ He said that the operation began on 07 May morning at 1.05 am and the government of India told Pakistan at 10.35 am that Indian forces would not hit military targets in Pakistan as they did not want any escalation. He further said that by doing so, the government of India actually conveyed that the Indian government had no political will and they would not fight (with Pakistan any further). Many speakers from the Congress Party had earlier taken the government to task for intelligence failure, which led to Pahalgam tragedy on 22 April 2025. They were also critical of the absence of security at the popular picnic spot and the way the terrorists were allowed to escape in a leisurely manner from a highly militarized zone. They also stressed upon the fact that the image of the Prime Minister had nosedived as the Pahalgam incident showed that the Prime Minister had been lying about the situation in Kashmir.

Shri Rahul Gandhi, in his speech, paid homage to the martyrs of Pahalgam. Alleging that Prime Minister Modi had the blood of the Pahalgam victims on his hands, Shri Gandhi said that the entire exercise (‘Operation Sindoor’) was carried out only to protect his image. He further stated, “Shri Modi must have the humility and the dignity to understand that the nation was above his image, his politics, and his public relations exercise.”

Shri Rahul Gandhi was also upset at the spine-less silence of the Prime Minister on the claims regarding US-brokered ceasefire being repeatedly made by Shri Donald Trump, President of the USA. The fact of the matter is that it was Shri Donald Trump who announced the ceasefire at 3.33 pm for the first time on 10.05.2025 on his Twitter handle. India implemented it about 1.5 hours later. But the reports from the border areas and live discussions on media channels suggest that Pakistan continued to send its drones into Indian territory till 10.30 pm on that day, while India had stopped its military action at 5.30 pm just after Trump’s announcement. Shri Rahul Gandhi asked the Prime Minister to tell Shri Donald Trump that he was lying on the question of ceasefire. Shri Gandhi said that if Shri Modi had 50% courage of Indira Gandhi, he would say ‘Donald Trump, you are a liar’ and that ‘We did not lose any planes.’ But neither Shri Modi named Shri Trump, nor he declared that India had not lost any aircrafts.

Shri Gandhi was also annoyed at India’s ham-handed foreign policy. He asked the government as to why a single country in the world did not condemn Pakistan for perpetrating the Pahalgam attack. He also quoted the statement of Deputy Chief of Army Rahul Singh, who had stated that China provided all possible support to Pakistan during the ‘Operation Sindoor’. He alleged that when the Indian forces attacked some Pakistani targets on 07 May 2025, the government did not have the information that they were up against China also. Shri Gandhi explained that the government has allowed China and Pakistan to come together against us, and this is one of the biggest foreign policy blunders of PM Modi.

The Congress President Shri Mallikarjun Kharge also made a fiery speech in Rajya Sabha, due to which the BJP President Shri J.P. Nadda lost his balance. He made some unparliamentary remarks against the Congress President. Nadda was forced by the INDIA block MPs to apologize for his unwarranted remarks. Shri Kharge stated that there have been multiple intelligence failures in Kashmir. Reminding the government of the terror attacks in the past, including Uri and Pathankot attacks in 2016, the Pulwama attack in 2019 and now Pahalgam attack, Shri Kharge asked the union Home Minister as to who are responsible for so many attacks and why no accountability has been fixed on anyone? Informing the people of the country that five terror attacks have been perpetrated in just one city of Pahalgam, since Modi government came to power, he demanded the resignation of Union Home Minister Amit Shah for his colossal failures on many fronts. Later in Lok Sabha, Smt. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra began her sombre but hard-hitting speech by praising India’s security and armed forces for maintaining the country’s independence, unity, and integrity. She exposed the poor handling of the Kashmir situation by the Modi Government by revealing that just one terror group has inflicted 25 major terror strikes in Kashmir in the last 5 years. Holding Union Home Minister Amit Shah for being directly responsible for the Pahalgam and other attacks, she demanded his resignation. She further stated that the Prime Minister also behaved irresponsibly when he misled the people of the country about the situation in Kashmir. He encouraged them to visit there, while his government had not deployed asingle security personnel for their protection. Consequently, they became an easy target of Pakistan-sponsored terrorists. She quoted the statement of the widow of a martyr of Pahalgam, who said that they placed their trust on the assurances of the government and went to Kashmir but the country had left them there alone like orphans to face the bullets of the terrorists. Smt. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said that the goals of ‘Operation Sindoor’ remain unfulfilled as the Chief of Army staff of Pakistan is having lunch meetings with Donald Trump, the President of the USA. In the end, an emotional Smt. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra remembered the 25 Indian martyrs of Pahalgam with reverence and respect and spoke out their names - Sameer Guha, Manish Ranjan, Sushil Nathaniel, Syed Adil Hussain Shah, Hemant Suhas Joshi, Atul Shrikant Mone, Neeraj Udhwani, Prashant Kumar Satpathy, N. Ramachandran, Sanjay Laxman Lele, Dinesh Agarwal, Dilip Disle, Shubham Divedi, Vinay Narwal, Bitan Adhikari, J.S Chandramouli, Manjunath Rao, Somisetti Madhusudan Rao, Santosh Jagdale, Bharat Bhushan, Sumit Parmar, Yatish Parmar, Tage Hailyang, Shailesh Kalathiya and Kaustubh Ganbote.

When Smt. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was pronouncing the names of the martyrs one-by-one, the Congress members of Parliament were speaking ‘Indian” in unison after each name. This beautiful gesture, when all MPs were speaking the word “Indian” together, ought to have been appreciated by all. Surprisingly, this angered the speaker of the Lok Sabha, Shri Om Birla, who was seen shouting at the INDIA block MPs and asked them not to collectively address the martyrs as Indians. Earlier, some BJP MPs wanted to call them Hindus, not Indians. The divisive mindset of the BJP and the speaker of the Lok Sabha was there for the whole country to see.

The author is Chief Spokesperson, Chandigarh Pradesh Congress.