Did ‘BJP’ hint of surgical strikes in June to ‘boost’ Rajnath Singh’s rating for UP polls?

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While political parties spar over the authenticity of the surgical strikes, an old report published by Times of India has come to haunt the BJP, putting question mark to the recent events in Kashmir and the LoC.

A report published in ToI on 12 June had talked about the BJP’s plan to project Home Minister Rajnath Singh as the party’s chief minister face ahead of Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.

Quoting a BJP leader in the report, the paper had written, “According to a BJP leader, the central government was planning a “major internal security operation” in the “near future” and Rajnath Singh would be made to take the credit for the operation to boost his standing ahead of the 2017 polls.”

Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister, Omar Abdullah tweeted the link of ToI’s old report asking if the paper had a scoop on their hands then.

He wrote, “Read the last but one para. I don’t think TOI realised they had a scoop on their hands on 11/06/16. This was written in JUNE. Long before the protests & crackdown in Kashmir & before the recent army action. I doubt anyone took it seriously.”

This is bound to provide more fodder to the BJP’s rival parties in countering the latter’s claims on surgical strikes.

Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam has already questioned the authenticity of surgical strikes carried across the LoC describing them fake.

Nirupam had tweeted, “Every Indian wants surgical strikes against Pakistan but not a fake one to extract just political benefit by BJP. Politics over national interest(sic).”

On Tuesday, both the BJP and AAP hurled accusations at each other after the Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal asked PM Narendra Modi to counter Pakistani propaganda on India’s claims of having carried out the surgical strikes across the LoC.

Pakistan had recently taken international media including the BBC and the CNN to the sites near the LoC, where India claimed it had carried out the surgical strikes.

Pakistani army had taken the rare step of flying international media to the de facto border to make its case in a battle of competing narratives, after India said its elite commandos penetrated up to three kilometres into Pakistan on anti-militant raids.

 

 

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