The Opposition on Saturday accused the Union Government of “misleading the nation” and renewed its demand for a special session of Parliament to discuss Operation Sindoor, following a candid admission by Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan that India had lost fighter jets on the first day of its recent military confrontation with Pakistan due to tactical lapses.
In an interview, General Chauhan said, “What is important is not the jet being down, but why they were being downed. What mistakes were made --- those are important. Numbers are not important. The good part is that we were able to understand the tactical mistake which we made, remedy it, rectify it, and then implement it again after two days and flew our jets again, targeting at long range.”
Reacting sharply, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge alleged on social media platform X: “The Modi Government has misled the nation. The fog of war is now clearing.” He further stated, “The Congress party demands a Comprehensive Review of our Defence Preparedness by an independent expert committee, on the lines of the Kargil Review Committee.”
Kharge also referred to US President Donald Trump’s claims about “brokering a ceasefire”, calling it “a direct affront to the Shimla Agreement.” He added: “Instead of clarifying Mr Trump’s repeated assertions, and the affidavit filed by the US Secretary of Commerce in the United States Court of International Trade, PM Modi is on an election blitz, taking personal credit for the valour of our Armed Forces, hiding behind their bravery and dodging the contours of the agreed ceasefire, which the Foreign Secretary announced on May 10, after Trump’s tweet.”
Also read: Learned from tactical mistakes, says Gen Chauhan
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh, in another post on X, wrote, “It is an extraordinary and telling commentary on Emergency@11 that the PM will not chair all-party meetings and will not take Parliament into confidence but the nation gets to know of the first phase of Operation Sindoor through the CDS’s interview in Singapore.”
He questioned why Opposition leaders had not been taken into confidence earlier.
Senior Congress leader and Telangana minister Uttam Kumar Reddy, a former Air Force pilot, asked the government to disclose the number of Indian aircraft shot down by Pakistan. “The fact that fighter aircraft were shot down is something the government needs to stop denying. The CDS himself mentioned that. Earlier, Air Marshal Bharti had mentioned it indirectly in his briefing report, along with the DGMO… The whole country must realise today that, for some reason, the GoI was not upfront with whatever happened,” he remarked.
Trinamool Congress’s deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha, Sagarika Ghose, echoed the criticism. “Why should international media report this first? Why were these facts first not given to India’s citizens, to Parliament and to people’s representatives?” she asked.
In a separate post, Ghose wrote: “There are now too many citizens’ concerns regarding Operation Sindoor that must be raised in the national interest. This is how a strong democracy renews itself and learns from experiences.”
“The Narendra Modi government can no longer deny the Opposition’s demand. A special session of Parliament must be convened in June,” she added.
As calls mount for greater transparency, Opposition parties maintain that democratic institutions must be trusted with information of national security relevance, rather than being bypassed in favour of foreign interviews or social media revelations.
Follow us
