Political Fallout from Shashi Tharoor's Comments on India's Surgical Strikes

Recent comments made by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor regarding India's surgical strikes have sparked intense reactions among political parties. Leading a multi-party delegation abroad, Tharoor stated that India crossed the Line of Control (LoC) for the first time in 2016 to conduct surgical strikes against terrorist infrastructure. This assertion was quickly contested, including by members of his own party. During a speech in Panama, he described the actions taken in response to the Uri attack in September 2016 as unprecedented, claiming it was the first instance of India attacking terrorist bases across the LoC, a feat not even achieved during the Kargil War.

The Congress party has made efforts to distance itself from Tharoor's comments, yet it seized the opportunity to reiterate its long-standing assertion that the UPA government authorized similar cross-border military operations during its tenure. Congress General Secretary Randeep Singh Surjewala defended Tharoor's credibility but stated that he was factually incorrect on this issue. Surjewala emphasized that the surgical strikes in 2016 were not a novel occurrence, as the Indian Army had conducted several such operations under the UPA government. The party shared a list of six alleged surgical strikes conducted between 2008 and 2014, including actions in Poonch, Khel, and the Neelum Valley, highlighting its preference for decisive action over mere propaganda. A video shared on social media was captioned, 'No noise. No PR. Just decisive action.'

Reiterating claims made by Randeep Surjewala in 2018, Congress once again listed six surgical strikes purportedly carried out during the UPA era. According to a recent post on social media, these operations included a strike in the Bhattal sector of Poonch on June 19, 2008, and another across the Neelum River in the Khel sector between August 31 and September 1, 2011. However, the BJP quickly refuted these claims. Amit Malviya, head of the BJP IT cell, shared information obtained under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, indicating that the Directorate General of Military Operations (DGMO) had no record of surgical strikes prior to September 2016.