A day after the Congress roped in Lt. Gen. D.S. Hooda (Retd), the man considered the architect of the surgical strike after the Uri incident, to head a task force on national security, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley termed it a “belated and grudging” recognition of the strikes by the Congress.
In a blogpost entitled “What it’s Advisors Must Tell the Congress Party on National Security”, Mr Jaitley said it was “intriguing that the party which ruled India for half a century, needs to be educated on national security issues”.
Acknowledging Gen. Hooda as an experienced and distinguished former officer of the Indian Army, Mr Jaitley said, “I have not the least doubt that he would give a very valuable advice to the grand old party.”
“I am sure the Head of the Advisory Panel (Gen. Hooda) would educate the Party leaders that the surgical strikes were no routine step which had been taken several times in the past, but a significant first for India,” he said.
The Congress has been accusing the Modi government of politicising the surgical strikes. On September 29, 2016, the Army had carried out the strikes on seven terrorist launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC) in retaliation to an attack on its base in Uri earlier that month.
Mr Jaitley hoped the experts would render advice to the Congress president on strategic issues while highlighting “some of the basic points” which are integrally connected to consistency on the issue of national security.
“Do not give an impression to the world that India is divided on how to fight terrorism. When the world is rallying around India, the Opposition in India should not be striking a discordant note,” he said.
Further, Mr Jaitley said, “next time if extremists and separatists raise slogans on how to break India (referring to the JNU incident), no one from mainstream parties should pay a supporting visit to them”.
“There is no freedom of speech to advocate a breakup of India,” he said.
“Our Armed forces are amongst the most professional organisations which have served this country exceedingly well. They work under a civilian command and maintain an arm’s length distance from the internal politics of the country. Politicians of any shade of opinion should not get into slanging match with any of the services personnel or their Chief. The Chief of a Force can’t be described as a ‘Sadak ka Goonda’,” he added.
Referring to the Ishrat Jahan case, Mr Jaitley said that when intelligence agencies were conducting anti-insurgency operations along with the security forces “do not let lose investigative agencies on the intelligence and security network of India.”
He added that “when security personnel fight the terrorists and make sacrifices (eg Batla House), do not legitimise terrorism by standing shoulder to shoulder with the terrorists and call the war against terror as a fake encounter.”
In an apparent reference to the Congress’ questions on the Rafale fighter jet deal, Mr. Jaitley said political parties should not politicise defence procurement on false and imaginary facts for petty gains as it hurts defence preparedness.
