‘UPA Did 6 Surgical Strikes’, Says Congress, BJP Counters Claim After Tharoor’s LoC Remark

A dispute erupted between India's BJP and Congress parties over surgical strikes. Congress claimed six strikes occurred under their UPA government, sharing a video to support this.

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor.

Source : X

The row over the opposition’s claims of the surgical strikes escalated on Friday after Congress shared a video claiming the actions against Pakistan during the earlier UPA regime at the Centre. Meanwhile, the Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, who is leading an all-party delegation to the US, Panama, Colombia, Brazil and Guyana remarked earlier that “for the first time, India breached the Line of Control to conduct a surgical strike”.

The recent remark by Tharoor has triggered a war of words between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress.

In a post on X, Congress shared a video and wrote, “No Noise. No PR. Only Decisive Actions 6 Surgical Strikes Were Carried Out Under Congress Govt.”

Reacting to the social media post, BJP accused the party of lying.

“Congress is corrupt, even when it comes to numbers related to national security. However, there were no surgical strikes under UPA as confirmed by the DGMO in response to an RTI query dated April 2018. Darpok Congress must STOP LYING," the BJP said in a post on X.

In the report, BJP cited a 2018 report published by Hindustan Times in which Rahul Gandhi claimed that three surgical strikes were conducted under the UPA government. It also cited the claims of six surgical strikes under the government between 2008 and 2014 by Congress. 

A Look At The Row

The entire controversy was triggered after Tharoor, who said India breached the Line of Control (LoC) for the first time in 2016 to carry out surgical strikes despite Congress claiming that similar operations took place under the Manmohan Singh-led government but were never publicised.

Tharoor lauded the counter-terrorism measures in Panama including the 2016 Uri surgical strike and the 2019 Balakot airstrike, marking the shift of India towards terrorism.