Goa politician Utpal Parrikar on Tuesday slammed Congress's Digivijaya Singh for doubting the authenticity of India's surgical strikes, saying such remarks are not surprising to come from a person who called terrorist Osama bin Laden "Osama ji".
Speaking during the Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra in Jammu on Monday, Mr Singh had expressed doubts over the cross-border military operation. "They (Centre) talk about surgical strikes and that they have killed so many of them but there is no proof. They are ruling by peddling a bundle of lies,” he had said.
In September 2016, India conducted surgical strikes across the Line of Control (LoC) as a response to a terrorist attack on an Army base in the Uri sector of Jammu and Kashmir. Utpal Parrikar's father and senior BJP leader Manohar Parrikar was the country's defence minister then.
“What Digvijaya Singh has said is not surprising, he has been consistently saying such things, be it about surgical strike or calling one of the most dreaded terrorist 'Osama ji'," said Utpal Parrikar.
Following the killing of the then Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks in the US, by American forces in Pakistan, Mr Singh was reported to have addressed him as “Osama ji”.
Utpal Parrikar said, "The Congress has really become a Congress for such people at its upper echelon and they are there to have allegiance to a particular family above everything else.”
“Unfortunately for them and fortunately for the country, people have realised this and are dutifully rejecting them at the general elections,” said Mr Parrikar, who had unsuccessfully contested last year's Goa assembly polls as an independent candidate.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
Featured Video Of The Day
"Learn From Your Father": Digvijaya Singh Cautions Shivraj Chouhan's Son Surgical Strikes Taught Biggest Lessons To "Mentors Of Terrorism": PM Modi In J&K Shashi Tharoor To Head Standing Committee On External Affairs Russia's Firing Of ICBM On Ukraine Is Weapon's 1st Combat Use In History This Asian City Is Emerging As Sex Tourism Hub. It's Not Where You Think Amazon Employee Greets Friend At Wedding, Dies Of Cardiac Arrest Man Caught On Camera Abusing Pet Dog In Greater Noida, Arrested Putin Hints At Strikes On West In "Global" Ukraine War Legal Challenges Ahead For Google's Forced Sale Of Chrome Track Latest News Live on NDTV.com and get news updates from India and around the world.