Digvijaya Singh’s surgical strike remark again puts Congress on defensive

The party distanced itself from the comments. “The views expressed by senior leader Digvijaya Singh are his own and do not reflect the position of Congress. Surgical strikes were carried out before 2014 by the UPA government. Congress has supported & will continue to support all military actions that are in the national interest,” said Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh.

The views expressed by senior leader Digvijaya Singh are his own and do not reflect the position of Congress. Surgical strikes were carried out before 2014 by UPA government. Congress has supported & will continue to support all military actions that are in the national interest.

— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) January 23, 2023

The BJP lashed out at the Congress. “India will not tolerate if they speak against armed forces. Rahul Gandhi and the Congress hate PM Modi but it seems they have been blinded by the hate to an extent that their dedication to the country has withered away,” said BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia. “Gandhi and the Congress do not have trust in our brave armed forces. They repeatedly raise questions and insult the citizens of India and our armed forces.”

While this is not the first time Singh has asked for proof of the strike, he is not the lone Congress leader to seek proof either. The initial reaction of the Congress in 2016 was to welcome the Army action. But, with the BJP then trying to hard sell the operation as an achievement of the Modi government, the party soon changed tack and started arguing that it was not the first time that the Indian Army had conducted surgical strikes.

“The Congress Party congratulates the armed forces on the success of the operation and offers its support to the government in our country’s continuing battle against cross-border terrorism,” Sonia Gandhi, the then Congress president, said on September 29, hours after the Army announced that the surgical strike had inflicted damage on the terror infrastructure across the Line of Control. The strike was conducted over a week after the Uri terror attack.

On a day, #IndiaHonoursParamVeers and Prime Minister Narendra Modi names 21 islands of Andaman and Nicobar after 21 Param Vir Chakra awardees, Congress and Digvijay Singh speak the language of Pakistan’s deep state, question the valour and integrity of our Armed Forces. Shame… pic.twitter.com/kWHcJ3EbXk

— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) January 23, 2023

Days later, Singh fired the first salvo. Pointing out that UN Observers and its official spokesperson had disputed India’s claim, in the first week of October he argued that “leave Pakistan … but if an independent body like the UN is doing that we should do everything to prove them wrong and to protect the credibility of our armed forces”.

And he was not alone. Several Congress leaders took potshots at the government, asking it to furnish evidence to clear doubts about the surgical strikes. And then came Rahul Gandhi’s fierce attack on the government even while arguing that he had no reason to disbelieve the Army’s statement.

Gandhi at the time accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of profiteering from soldiers’ sacrifice. “Jo hamare jawan hain, jinhone apna khoon diya hai Jammu Kashmir main … jinhone Hindustan ke liye surgical strike kiya hai, unke khoon ke peeche aap chupe hue ho. Unki aap dalali kar rahe ho. Yeh bilkul galat hai (Our soldiers who have shed their blood in Jammu and Kashmir, who have conducted the surgical strikes, you are hiding behind their blood. You are profiteering from them),” he said at a rally in Delhi on October 6.

Days later, the then Mumbai Congress chief, Sanjay Nirupam, argued that “every Indian wants surgical strikes against Pakistan but not a fake one to extract just political benefit by the BJP”. But the Congress disassociated itself from Nirupam’s statement, with the then communications department head, Randeep Surjewala, addressing an urgent press conference to clear the air.

He said the Congress does not agree with Nirupam’s statement but argued the Government should call the Pakistani bluff and false propaganda by using all information, evidence, and instruments at its disposal.

The Congress’s position then was that surgical strikes were nothing new. The party and its senior leaders mentioned some dates from the UPA-II years on which the Army reportedly conducted similar military operations. P Chidambaram, for instance, argued that India conducted a surgical strike in 2013 but the UPA government chose not to go public in keeping with its policy of strategic restraint. Senior leader Anand Sharma claimed the Army had taken action in 2008, 2009, 2011, and 2013 but the Congress-led government chose not to take “political ownership” of those actions.

In February 2019, days after the Pulwama terror attack, the Congress announced the appointment of Lieutenant General (Retd) D S Hooda as the head of its task force on national security. As the head of the Army’s Northern Command, Hooda oversaw the surgical strike in 2016. In December 2018, asked about the strike, he said, “Did the overhype help? I say, completely no. If you start having political resonance in military operations, it is not good. There was too much political banter, on both sides, and when military operations get politicised, that is not good.”

In April 2019, the Hooda-led task force submitted its report to Rahul Gandhi.

Meanwhile, the Congress was put on the defensive after the Balakot air strike that was a response to the Pulwama attack. In March 2019, technocrat-turned-Congress leader Sam Pitroda sought “more facts” and proof of the death toll in the air strike. The Congress again was forced to distance itself, saying the “expression of opinion by an individual has nothing to do with the opinion of the party”.

Digvijaya is not new to controversies. His remarks that the 2008 Batla House encounter was fake and the demand for a judicial probe put the Congress and the Manmohan Singh government in a spot.

His comment that he had spoken to Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad chief Hemant Karkare on November 26, 2008, hours before the city faced a terrorist attack, also sparked a row. Karkare was killed in the attack. Digvijaya claimed that Karkare had told him that he had been receiving threat calls from Hindu extremists. Karkare at the time was heading the investigation into the 2008 Malegaon blasts for which three members of a Hindutva group had been arrested.

Digvijaya’s visit to Azamgarh in 2010 — he claimed to have been on a fact-finding visit to find out “the reasons behind Azamgarh being named in terror attack cases” — also pushed the party into a corner and he was seen as overdoing the “Muslim line” often by making polarising statements. The former Madhya Pradesh CM also took on then Union Home Minister P Chidambaram in 2010 on the government’s Naxal policy, even calling him “intellectually arrogant” in a newspaper article.