Rahul lauds Modi, says he acted like Prime Minister for first time

Bulandshahr, September 30

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Friday praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the surgical strikes by the Indian Army on terrorist launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC), saying it is first time in two-and-a-half years that he took action befitting the stature of a Prime Minister.

Addressing a gathering here as part of his Kisan Yatra in Uttar Pradesh, Gandhi said the whole country and Congress was with the government.

“I want to thank him that for the first time in two-and-a-half years, he has taken action which befits the stature of the PM. He has my full support. The entire country and the Congress are with the Prime Minister,” Gandhi said.

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The Army carried out the surgical strikes on late Wednesday night on seven terrorist launch pads across the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir inflicting “significant casualties”.

In the course of the Kisan Yatra, Rahul had alleged that Modi’s “short-sighted” political alliance with the PDP has “opened space” for terrorism in Kashmir.

#WATCH Rahul Gandhi: "I thank PM for taking this action. My party & I stand with him in this" on #SurgicalStrike conducted by Indian army pic.twitter.com/L7kSlg0lEk

— ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) September 30, 2016

“I stand by our soldiers and I condemn what has been done to them by Pakistanis. However, space for that has been created by politics the NDA has practised in Jammu and Kashmir,” he had said in Mati (Kanpur Dehat) on September 20, days after the Uri attack.

Rahul had said the erstwhile UPA government had spent nine years fighting terrorism and curbing it.

He had held Pakistan responsible for the Uri attack and apportioned blame to the NDA government’s “politics” for it.

Alleging that the NDA had “no strategy” vis-a-vis Kashmir, Rahul had targeted the Prime Minister, saying, “He goes from one event to another and this is no way of handling national security. National security cannot be handled like public meetings. This is a serious matter.”

“FYI Modiji: a Kashmir strategy cannot be developed using selfies and sound bites (sic),” he had tweeted. — Agencies