Loud talk mere rhetoric: Opposition

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 25

Terming Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Pakistan talk as mere rhetoric, a joint Opposition today described his government as the weakest ever on national security and sought accountability for frequent terror attacks.

A day after the PM called upon Pakistan to wage a war on poverty, the Congress reminded him of his pre-2014 election politics when he was habitual of projecting himself as the sole leader capable of taking on Pakistan.

“The PM has become a victim of his own platitudes. For 10 years, he played politics on national security portraying himself as the only he-man around as if others were lesser men. Today when the time has come for him to act after the Uri attack, he is cleverly changing the goalposts to hide his government’s failures on the security front. We are way ahead of Pakistan on development indicators. It’s shameful for an Indian PM to suggest we need to race Pakistan on that track,” Congress leader Manish Tewari said.

Left parties too questioned PM’s statements on Pakistan, saying there was something lacking in the government’s policy on Pakistan and Kashmir. “The PM’s speech is nothing, but rhetoric. He is asking for a war on poverty. How does one fight that war…By buying Rafales in a response to Pakistan’s F-16s? The PM is the very man who indulged in war mongering post-Mumbai attack. Today he talks otherwise,” CPM’s Mohd Salim said.

Left front partner CPI spoke of the need for the PM to win over the hearts of Kashmiris to isolate Pakistan internationally. “Restraint, which the PM yesterday advocated, is good but diplomatic isolation of Pakistan is a must. That can’t happen unless we win over Kashmiris. The PM’s no-war doctrine will also help only if he assures people that terror attacks won’t be repeated,” CPI general secretary Sudhakar Reddy said.

Reddy’s CPI colleague D Raja sought introspection into why Uri and previously Gurdaspur and Pathankot attacks became possible. “We must probe our own lapses also,” he said.

Privately, opposition leaders said the PM’s “war not an option” stand articulated yesterday from Kozhikode was good and was along the expected lines because had military options existed, the previous UPA government would have exercised those after 26/11.