Prime Minister Narendra Modi told his ministerial colleagues at the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday that only those authorised to speak on the Army’s surgical strikes across the Line of Control on September 29 should do so in the next few days, and chest-thumping be avoided.
A senior Minister, seeking anonymity, told The Hindu that Mr. Modi advised his colleagues to “avoid speaking out of turn” on the issue. “Mr. Modi was clear that only authorised people must speak on the issue, and chest-thumping should be avoided,” the source said. “In fact, on the day when Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal released his video message asking that the government provide proof of the strikes, no one from the government or the party [the BJP] spoke. It was only the next day that Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad was asked to react from the party headquarters.”
The Opposition had asked the government to call Pakistan’s bluff after that country took a group of journalists, including those from the international media, to the Line of Control to show that Indian claims of surgical strikes were “false.”
The political unity that was visible on the day when the LoC action was announced is now shattered.
The Congress also accused the BJP and the government of trying to profit politically from the strikes, something the Congress government had avoided, according to All-India Congress Committee general secretary Randeep Surjewala.
The government, sources said, is hoping that the high pitch of this war of words could be ended by some cautious silence.
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