New Delhi: BJP leader Baijayant Jay Panda on Monday took a dig at the Congress, saying the party is not allowing its own member and noted orator Shashi Tharoor to speak in Lok Sabha.
Participating in a special discussion in the House on 'India's strong, successful and decisive Operation Sindoor in response to the terror attack in Pahalgam', Panda alleged that the Congress governments on a number of occasions surrendered India's interests.
"There are several leaders in your (Congress) party who can speak well... My friend Shashi Tharoor Ji, who is a good speaker, is not allowed to speak by his party," he said, adding that Tharoor had earlier spoken in the interest of the country.
According to sources, the Congress asked its Thiruvananthapuram MP Tharoor if he was interested in speaking during the debate on Operation Sindoor in Parliament, but the latter declined.
There has been intense speculation on whether Tharoor, who led a delegation to the US, among other countries, will be picked as a speaker by the Congress given his enthusiastic endorsement of the government's action following the Pahalgam terror attack, which reportedly soured his ties with the party.
The approach of the Congress governments in the past was only to increase cooperation with Pakistan and not to retaliate and teach them a lesson, Panda, who was among the MPs leading the seven multi-party delegations to convey India's message of zero tolerance against terrorism in May, said.
The Kendrapara (Odisha) MP said that Operation Sindoor was an attack on terrorists in Pakistan, and not on civilians. "This is not a reaction, this is Modi's doctrine, which Pakistan has understood. This is a new normal," he said, adding that it is shameful that the opposition only questions Indian armed forces and not Pakistan.
Citing various instances of terrorist attack on India, Panda accused the previous Congress governments of appeasing Pakistan instead of taking retaliatory actions.
On the question that India was pressurised to announce a ceasefire (with Pakistan), he said the military operation was halted only after a direct request from Pakistan.
He also said that the opposition is falling for the false narratives of Pakistan.
Attacking the government, Congress MP Deepender Singh Hooda demanded that India should not play cricket with Pakistan at a time when Operation Sindoor is going on.
Hooda also demanded modernisation of Indian defence forces and increase in the defence budget.
He said that US President Donald Trump claimed "28 times" that he brokered peace between India and Pakistan, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi has never contradicted him.
The government has to decide its relationship with the US, he said, adding that either India should ask Trump to stop speaking on India-Pakistan issues or the government should close down the operations of fast food giant McDonald's, a US-based firm, in India.
The Rohtak MP added that the government should disclose the terms of ceasefire with Pakistan. He also said that no country has condemned Pakistan and the Indian government also failed to stop loans granted to Pakistan by multi-lateral bodies such as the IMF and ADB.
(Except for the headline, this article has not been edited by FPJ's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)
