Playing out a video of a group of students in Sumy, a city in northeastern Ukraine, pleading for help from the Government of India, the Congress on Friday asked why India had not been able to ensure a safe passage for the students.
Addressing a joint press conference, party spokespersons Gurdeep Sappal and Shama Mohamed said that though the four Ministers of the Narendra Modi government were expected to speed up the evacuation process, they had been indulging in “chest thumping” and PR exercise.
“You saw the video at the beginning of the press conference in which the boy is literally crying for help. But these cries of pain neither reach the Prime Minister nor his government,” said Mr. Sappal.
“Modi ji speaks to both Russian and Ukrainian Presidents. Has he spoken about a safe passage for our students and if yes, what is the problem to have this passage?” he added.
Gulf War
Ms. Mohamed said that though India undertook the biggest evacuation exercise of safely bringing back 1,70,000 people during the Gulf War of 1990s and Air India entered the Guinness Book of World Records for rescuing the maximum number of people evacuated by a civil airliner, “no Minister was sent to promote the government while this was being done. No Minister asked Indians to say ‘PM Zindabad’ like today we hear students being told to say ‘Modi ji ki Jai’ after they got rescued. Is this China or North Korea that we hail our leader for doing his duty!” she asked.
Mr. Sappal reiterated his party’s demand that the government should disclose the number of students rescued from Ukraine and how many were still stranded , especially in the zones that had seen heavy shelling and bombardment by the Russian troops.
When pointed out that Congress MPs including Rahul Gandhi had appreciated India’s evacuation effort in the parliamentary consultative committee on external affairs, Mr. Sappal said, “We will support whatever steps the Government of India takes to get back our children. But the problem is that the government is not giving out basic information”.
The Congress also demanded the sacking of BJP MLA from Karnataka Arvind Bellad for allegedly saying that “a dead body takes up more space in a flight” when asked about the bringing back the body of Naveen Shekarappa Gyanagoudar, the student who was killed on March 1.
