"Conduct Surgical Strike": Sena's Taunt On Minister's "China, Pak" Remark

The government should "immediately conduct a surgical strike on China and Pakistan" if a minister has information of their role in the farmer protests, Maharashtra's ruling Shiv Sena said today, mocking its former ally BJP.

"If a Union Minister has information that China and Pakistan have a hand behind the farmers' agitation, then, the Defence Minister should immediately conduct a surgical strike on China and Pak. The President, Prime Minister, Home Minister and Chiefs of the Armed Forces should discuss this issue seriously," said Shiv Sena's Rajya Sabha member and chief spokesperson Sanjay Raut.

There have been sharp reactions to Union Minister Raosaheb Danve's comments yesterday on the massive farmer protests on highways outside Delhi against three new central laws.

"The agitation that is going on is not that of farmers. China and Pakistan have a hand behind this. Muslims in this country were incited first. What was said (to them)? That NRC (National Register for Citizens) is coming, CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) is coming and Muslims will have to leave this country in six months. Did a single Muslim leave," Mr Danve said at a function in Maharashtra.

A prominent Sikh body, the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee, condemned the remarks.

"Farmers have been sitting peacefully and the government has failed to deliver justice...the farmers who themselves fight and die for the nation, grow food, and whose children too martyr themselves for the nation...don't try to paint them anti-national," the group's president S Manjinder Singh Sirsa said in a video message on Wednesday.

Calling the insinuation "shameful", he said the government's ministers and spokespersons had been making such allegations.

Thousands of farmers across the country, especially those from Punjab and Haryana, have been protesting for two weeks against laws that they fear will take away their guaranteed earnings and leave them at the mercy of big corporates. The government yesterday offered to amend the laws but the farmers want them scrapped altogether.