In a no-holds-barred attack, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of using the armed forces to protect his image after the Pahalgam attack and dared him to categorically rebut US President Donald Trump's India-Pakistan ceasefire claims.
"If Modi ji has even 50 per cent of the courage that Indira Gandhi had, then clearly he must say in Parliament -- Donald Trump is lying," he said.
Participating in a special discussion in Lok Sabha on "India's strong, successful and decisive Operation Sindoor in response to the terror attack in Pahalgam", Gandhi also said that if the government had listened to his statement in Lok Sabha a few months ago on China and Pakistan fusing together, "you would not have lost those five planes" during Operation Sindoor.
Modi, who spoke after Gandhi, affirmed that no leader of any country asked India to stop Operation Sindoor but lamented that while the nation got support from the entire world, the Congress and its allies could not stand behind the valour of the nation's soldiers.
Speaking with reporters after the debate ended, Gandhi said, "Narendra Modi did not clearly say that Trump is lying. Trump has said 29 times that he brought about a ceasefire, but Narendra Modi did not respond to it." "The most notable thing was that throughout the entire speech, the Prime Minister did not mention China. The whole country knows that China helped Pakistan, but the word China did not come out of the Prime Minister's mouth," Gandhi said.
Speaking in the Lower House, Gandhi claimed the government revealed sensitive details about Operation Sindoor to Pakistan, soon after it was launched.
"Yesterday, I watched Rajnath Singh ji's speech. He said that Operation Sindoor began at 1:05 in the morning and lasted for 22 minutes. He said a very shocking thing: that at 1:35, we called Pakistan and told them that we had hit non-military targets and we didn't want escalation. These are the words of the Defence Minister of India," the former Congress president said.
"You told Pakistan exactly what you would do: that you would not target military establishments and you didn't want escalation. That's surrender. Immediate surrender in 30 minutes," Gandhi said, slamming the government.
He cited remarks by Defence Attache in Indonesia, Group Captain Shiv Kumar, to claim that there were constraints by the political leadership to not attack the Pakistani military establishment and their air defences.
Why was the Pakistani government told that India will neither attack their army infrastructure nor their air defense and why were the hands of the Indian Air Force tied, Gandhi asked.
He alleged that the goal of this exercise was to "protect the image of the PM" as he had "blood of Pahalgam victims on his hands".
Tagging the video of his speech, Gandhi later said on X, "Prime Minister, The nation and the army are far above your image, your politics, your PR, and your propaganda. Have the humility to understand this, have the dignity to accept it." "If you lacked the ability to make decisions, you also had no right to pawn the pride of the army and the nation," he said.
In his remarks in the Lok Sabha, Gandhi said this government is clueless about what deterrence and political will means, and gave Indira Gandhi's example when Pakistan was broken into two parts in 1971.
"I said in this House, three-four months back and they laughed at me. I said please understand that India's biggest foreign policy challenge has been to keep Pakistan and China separate. And I said here that I am sad to say that you have destroyed the single biggest goal of foreign policy. China and Pakistan are fused," Gandhi said.
He said that what happened during Operation Sindoor is that the government of India thought it was fighting Pakistan but soon realised suddenly that they were fighting China and Pakistan both.
"Meaning that the Pakistani Air Force was attached with the Chinese Air Force and not only that, the doctrine of the Pakistani Air Force was changed ...the Chinese were feeding critical battlefield information to them," he said and cited Deputy Chief of Army Staff Lieutenant General Rahul R Singh remarks on China's support to Pakistan during Operation Sindoor.
Gandhi asserted that the armed forces should be used with freedom, saying if one wants to unleash a tiger, it should be freed.
"Do not tie his hands behind his back. Go all the way, defeat them once and for all. Don't have President Trump tell you 29 times that he stopped the war. Have the courage to tell him, 'no, to hell with you, you can't stop any war, we are going to fight'," the former Congress president said.
The point is that we're now facing a Chinese-Pakistani fusion right in front of us, he said.
"This is a very dangerous time, and we can't afford a Prime Minister who lacks the courage to utilise the army the way it has to be used. We can't afford a Prime Minister who doesn't have the guts to say from here that Donald Trump is a liar, that he didn't stop India from fighting and is lying about the planes," Gandhi said.
He said India needs a prime minister who frees the Army, Air Force and Navy and tells them -- 'Go, finish the job", much like what Indira Gandhi did. Gandhi claimed that Trump has stated "29 times" that he brought about a ceasefire between India and Pakistan.
"If he is lying, the PM should say here that Trump is lying. If he has the courage of an Indira Gandhi, let him say here, 'Trump, you are a liar, you did not make a ceasefire and we did not lose any planes'," Gandhi said.
"If Modi ji has even 50 per cent of the courage that Indira Gandhi had, then clearly he must say in Parliament - Donald Trump is lying!" he said.
In his remarks, Gandhi also referred to a statement of Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan, who said in an interview that India rectified its tactics and hit deep inside Pakistani territory after suffering losses during Operation Sindoor.
"The Indian Air Force made no mistake but the mistake was committed by the political leadership that 'you cannot attack military infrastructure and CDS Anil Chauhan must say 'my hands were tied so the Air Force is not to be blamed at all'," Gandhi said. He asserted that the Pahalgam incident was a brutal attack that was organised and orchestrated clearly by the Pakistani state.
Referring to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar's remarks in the House, Gandhi said he did not tell people that no country condemned Pakistan particularly.
"When the UPA government was there, Pakistan was condemned for terrorism," he said.
Gandhi also slammed Modi for not speaking out when Trump hosted the "architect of the Pahalgam attack", Pakistan Army Chief Asim Munir, for lunch.
