Political parties on Sunday reacted to The Hindu's exclusive report on Operation Ginger carried out by the Indian army across the LOC in 2011, with the Congress seeing it as proof that the recent surgical strikes were nothing new and the BJP claiming that there was a difference in style and scale between the 2011 and present operations.
BJP spokesperson G.V.L. Narasimha Rao said, “What have been carried out now are surgical strikes over a 250-km radius on pre-identified, specific terror targets by special teams with surgical precision. The published details of 2011 appear to be a reprisal ambush attack very close to the LoC.”
No political backing“While the UPA government at the time had known about it only after the ambush, the strikes now are a designed strike with political involvement at the highest level. The UPA then did not muster the political courage to own up the army's operation even after they were carried out. The present government rallied behind the armed forces and told and convinced the world of our right to retaliate against terror.”
Congress leader Manish Tewari however, said the story only demonstrated that such strikes had been conducted before.
“Every government going back to the time that Pakistan launched its proxy war against India, has conducted operations across the LOC and even the IB. The reason why they were not publicly profiled was because the intent was to deliver a message to Pakistan and yet not trumpet it so that the Pakistani deep state could absorb the message and bring about a behaviour change, which is what the larger objective of such actions should be. The strategy was incrementally successful in achieving the desired end,” Mr. Tewari said.
Achievements undermined“Unlike earlier, this time around the optics have demonstrated that the operation was more for domestic consumption, for the bogey put up by the government that the army publicised it and not the political executive begs the question why did the army not do it earlier?” he asked.
Seeing The Hindu's report as informative, Janata Dal (United) leader K.C. Tyagi said while none should question the army, it was equally important that no political party should use such strikes for electoral gains. “Statements claiming such things never happened earlier are akin to underestimating past achievements of the army and earlier political leaders,” he said.
