Bengaluru: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Saturday flayed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not attending the all-party meeting on the Pahalgam terror attack and claimed that the government had admitted to security lapses in the meeting held in Delhi.
With regard to the suspension of the 1960 Indus Water Treaty with Pakistan, he asked the government where it would store the water and maintained that these issues would be raised later and not now.
Kharge said leaders from all political parties were present, including him and the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, at the all-party meeting.
“The first question I raised in the meeting was that when the government convenes a meeting, the prime minister should have been present. Since he was not present, we said it was not right,” he told reporters here.
The Congress president said the prime minister’s attitude towards the all-party meeting was not proper when at least 26 people lost their lives and many others sustained injuries.
He also hit out at PM Modi for addressing an election rally in poll-bound Bihar rather than attending the all-party meeting.
“You go to deliver your election speech in Bihar. If he (Modi) is not attending the meeting then it means that he is not serious about it,” Kharge said.
“Instead of speaking in Hindi and English, you should have spoken to us about what and how it (terror strike) happened, security lapse, intelligence lapse, or lapse on the part of informants and police. Unfortunately he did not turn up,” he said.
The AICC president said that Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, who chaired the meeting, admitted that there was a security lapse in the Pahalgam terror attack in which 26 people were killed.
Kharge said he also told Union Home Minister Amit Shah to take this issue as a challenge and make arrangements that such incidents are not repeated.
“Whatever lapse has happened has happened, but in the future we should not let this happen. I told Shah that this should be taken up as a challenge. Everything should be properly arranged,” he said.
He also said that Shah assured the all-party delegation that such incidents will not happen in the future.
Despite a three-tier security system, the government could not protect people, Kharge rued.
“Still, from the perspective of the nation and its unity, we told them that let us all come together and ensure the country’s protection. We also conveyed that we are united to support the government’s decision in this matter,” the veteran leader said.
When reporters asked him whether he was happy with the decisions taken by the government, Kharge said, “This is not the time to pinpoint those things. When the situation comes we will tell them, but telling those things now will not be good.”
Now it is time to stand united with the government and not to find fault with the decisions taken by it, he added.
On India’s decision to keep in abeyance the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 with Pakistan, Kharge said, “If you (government) decide to withhold water, where will you store it? Do we have such dams? But those questions will come later, not now.”
