New Delhi, May 23 (IANS) Looking to counter the BJP’s campaign claiming credit for Operation Sindoor’s success, the Congress on Friday armed its 140 spokespersons with ammunition to corner the government on issues related to military action and diplomacy. The brainstorming focused on questioning the government on foreign policy, the US President’s role in the ceasefire with Pakistan, and to demand a special Parliament session to discuss matters related with the counter-terror Operation Sindoor undertaken by armed forces. As part of its strategy, the Congress is aiming for uniformity in stands taken by the spokespersons on different platforms and gearing up to launch an offensive coinciding with the government’s diplomatic outreach, entailing visits by seven all-party delegations to various nations to explain the country’s stand against terror.

The Congress lined up its star spokespersons, including Jairam Ramesh, Pawan Khera and Supriya Shrinate, to share tips with its ‘Team-140’ under the guidance of Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and party President Mallikarjun Kharge. Congress Spokesperson Supriya Shrinate said that BJP MP Nishikant Dubey’s remark shows that the BJP is admitting to EAM S. Jaishankar giving prior information on Operation Sindoor to Pakistan. “This validates the stand taken by Rahul Gandhi on the issue,” she told IANS. “The BJP is playing with the security of the country by releasing new documents every day. By doing such things, you end up exposing your own stupidity but cannot mislead the public,” she said. Congress spokesman Abhay Dubey said the entire nation is seeking answers on why the government gave advance information about Operation Sindoor to Pakistan.

“The sin of giving information to Pakistan cannot be brushed under the carpet,” he said, calling it treachery with people and the military. Party spokesman Madhu Goud Yaskhi said BJP MP Nishikant Dubey’s claims confirm the Congress belief that prior intimation was given by India to Pakistan. “His tweet confirms what the External Affairs Minister has been denying after making a confessional statement that he has informed Pakistan forces that we are going to attack. That’s proven beyond doubt,” said Yaskhi. “It’s the biggest crime committed by the Modi government on the people of India and the Indian forces,” he said. He said even if we assume that there was an India-Pakistan military pact on information sharing, what was stopping the Modi government in the past 11 years from changing it?

“You are in power. You have the authority to change anything. There is no such binding on the Indian government now,” he said. Yaskhi also credited the Congress-led UPA government under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for hitting back at Pakistan after 26/11 by isolating it and cutting off international aid to it, and successfully exposing its terror links to the world. He also questioned why the militants who committed the Pahalgam attack could not be traced even one month after the heinous crime. Earlier, BJP MP Nishikant Dubey dug out a document about the India-Pakistan military 1991 pact, highlighting, in a message on social media platform X, how the then government entered into an agreement with enemy nation and agreed to share information beforehand.

The BJP lawmaker took to X and slammed Rahul Gandhi and Congress over their duplicity over the two nations striking a ceasefire ‘understanding’ after the Operation Sindoor. Dubey’s explosive claims come against the backdrop of raging controversy over EAM Jaishankar’s alleged remarks that India alerted Pakistan ahead of Operation Sindoor. Since then, the Congress has launched an attack on the government, claiming the prior intimation to Pakistan amounted to a crime and that the pact referred to by Dubey was not signed under the party’s government.