New Delhi: The Congress on Thursday alleged that the diplomatic delegations being sent abroad were part of the government’s “WMD — weapons of mass distraction” exercise and demanded Prime Minister Narendra Modi call a special session of Parliament and clarify US President Donald Trump’s India-Pakistan ceasefire claims.
Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh also said that instead of throwing out grand sounding but hollow filmy dialogues in public rallies, as he did in Bikaner on Thursday, the prime minister should answer the serious questions being asked of him.
“Why are the brutal killers of Pahalgam still free — according to some reports, they had been responsible for three earlier terror attacks in Poonch, Gagangir and Gulmarg over the past 18 months. Why have you not chaired any all-party meeting and taken the opposition parties into confidence?” Ramesh said in a post on X.
He also questioned why the prime minister had not called a special session of Parliament to reiterate the unanimously-passed resolution of February 22, 1994, and update it, given the deep China-Pakistan nexus evident during Operation Sindoor.
“Why have you stubbornly remained silent on the repeated claims being made by President Trump and US Secretary of State Rubio on the US role over the past two weeks especially?” Ramesh asked.
Speaking with PTI, the Congress general secretary cited news reports that the terrorists responsible for the Pahalgam massacre were also involved in three earlier terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir and said there should be a clarification from the government if this was true as it would make their being at large even more serious.
“The continued refusal of the prime minister to call a session of Parliament and meanwhile send a delegation of 50 MPs to different countries… is all domestic optics and meaningless,” Ramesh said.
These delegations are “meaningless optical exercises”, he added.
“India and Pakistan have WMDs (weapons of mass destruction). India has one more class of WMD that Pakistan does not have — weapon of mass distraction. The sending of these delegations is part of the WMD exercise,” Ramesh said in a swipe at Modi.
“He (Modi) has unleashed three WMDs — ‘weapons of mass defamation’ are unleashed from the BJP headquarters and ‘weapons of mass diversion’ and ‘weapons of mass distraction’ are these MPs being sent as part of delegations,” he said.
With Trump repeating his claim that he settled the military conflict between India and Pakistan through the promise of trade, the Congress also said Modi had not rejected these statements even once and asked the reason behind this “thundering silence”.
“The prime minister is quiet on this (Trump’s claims). There was ‘Howdy Modi’, ‘Namaste Trump’, all that but the prime minister is quiet on this. The EAM (External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar) has not said anything on what (US Secretary of State (Marco) Rubio has claimed. Rubio, in fact, has gone one step further and claimed that talks between the two countries would take place at a ‘neutral site’,” Ramesh said.
In a post on X, Ramesh said that for the eighth time in 11 days, Trump had claimed full credit for the ceasefire between India and Pakistan, praised the prime ministers of India and Pakistan equally and put them on a par in every way, and also reiterated that trade with the US was the instrument he used to get the two counties to declare a ceasefire.
“Yet our Prime minister — Donald bhai’s great buddy — is completely silent on what the US president is repeatedly saying. The external affairs minister also continues to maintain complete quiet on what his pal, the US secretary of state, has said in support of the US president’s claims and about the ‘neutral site’ for talks between India and Pakistan,” Ramesh said in a post on X.
“Why this thundering silence?” he asked.
Speaking with PTI, Ramesh said there were serious questions being raised on not only why Operation Sindoor was suddenly and unexpectedly stopped but on its full impact.
“The only way you can assess this is with a Kargil committee-type of exercise. You have to do it,” Ramesh said.
He recalled that three days after the Kargil War ended, the Vajpayee government set up the Kargil Review Committee on July 29, 1999. Its report was tabled in Parliament on February 23, 2000.
Addressing a press conference at the Congress’ 24, Akbar Road, office, party MP Praniti Shinde alleged that the Modi government had reduced serious issues such as national security, diplomacy and internal stability to a medium of hollow propaganda and photo opportunity.
“After Operation Sindoor, Prime Minister Modi’s focus has been only on publicity and self-praise but the people of the country want answers,” she said.
Shinde said 26 innocent citizens lost their lives in the Pahalgam attack, followed by the martyrdom of brave soldiers and, after all this, the country still waited to know where those terrorists who killed the tourists were.
“Why has the government not been able to arrest them yet?” she asked.
“US President Trump said the ceasefire was reached after applying trade pressure. Did the Indian government know about this beforehand? Why is the Modi government silent on this outrageous claim till date?” she said.
In his remarks in the Oval Office during a meeting with visiting South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Trump said, “If you take a look at what we just did with Pakistan and India. We settled that whole (matter), and I think I settled it through trade.”
He said the US was doing a “big deal” with both India and Pakistan.
