Army carried out surgical strike thrice during UPA rule but never politicised like Modi: Rahul Gandhi

Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of politicising the surgical strike carried by Army in September 2016 to win the Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. During his interaction with professionals in Rajasthan’s Udaipur as part of the Congress party’s election campaign, Gandhi said that during the Manmohan Singh government, the Army had conducted similar surgical strike thrice but the action was not used for political gains.

"Do you know that like Mr Narendra Modi's surgical strike, Manmohan Singh did that 3 times? When Army came to Mr Manmohan Singh and said we need to retaliate against Pakistan for what they've done they also said we wanted to be secret, for our own purposes," he said.

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The Congress chief said that PM Modi reached into the Army’s domain and a military action into a political asset as to win the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections.

"Narendra Modi actually reached into Army's domain and shaped their surgical strike, he turned their surgical strike into a political asset when it actually was a military decision. What the Army would have liked was we'll do it, it's beneficial if nobody knows we did it. But Mr Modi didn't want that. He was fighting an election in UP and he was losing it," the Gandhi scion said.

Taking a dig at the prime minister, Gandhi said that Modi has a sense that all the knowledge comes from his brain and he knows better than Army, foreign minister and agriculture minister about their respective fields.

“PM is convinced he knows better than Army what needs to be done in Army's area, better than Foreign Min what needs to be done in the foreign ministry, better than Agriculture Min what needs to be done in agriculture because he has a sense that all knowledge comes from his brain,” he said.

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The Congress leader also questioned Modi’s understanding of Hinduism and said, “what is the essence of Hinduism? What does the Gita say? That knowledge is with everybody, knowledge is all around you. Every living being has knowledge. Our PM says he is a Hindu but he doesn't understand the foundation of Hinduism.”