After Trump’s ‘five jets shot down’ claim, Rahul says country must know the truth
NEW DELHI, July 19: After US President Donald Trump’s remark that “five jets were shot down” during the conflict between India and Pakistan, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to clarify and asserted that the country has the right to know the truth.
Questioning the prime minister’s “silence”, the Congress also demanded that PM Modi give a “clear and categorical” statement in Parliament on the US leader’s claims on the India-Pakistan conflict over the last 70 days.
The opposition party’s assertion came after Trump said “five jets were shot down” during the conflict between India and Pakistan in May, while repeating his assertion that the fighting ended following his intervention.
The US president did not specify whether the jets were lost by either of the two countries or if he was referring to combined losses.
In a post in Hindi on X, Gandhi said, “Modiji, what is the truth about the five jets? The country has a right to know!” Congress general secretary in-charge (Communications) Jairam Ramesh said just two days before the Monsoon Session of Parliament begins, “the Trump missile gets fired” for the 24th time with the same two messages.
He pointed out that Trump has again stated that the US stopped the war between India and Pakistan, two countries that have nuclear weapons.
The US President also reiterated his remarks that there would be no trade deal if the war continued, he said.
Trump said that if India and Pakistan want a trade agreement with the US, they have to agree to an immediate ceasefire, Ramesh pointed out.
“The sensational new revelation by President Trump this time around is that five jets may have been downed,” Ramesh said.
“The prime minister, who has had years of friendship and huglomacy with President Trump going back to ‘Howdy Modi’ in September 2019 and ‘Namaste Trump’ in February 2020, has to now himself make a clear and categorical statement in Parliament on what President Trump has been claiming over the past 70 days,” the Congress leader said.
The Congress’ whip in the Lok Sabha, Manicakam Tagore, also attacked the government over Trump’s remarks.
“Trump boasts about preventing a nuclear conflict using ‘trade pressure’. Pakistan applauds him. They’ve even proposed a Nobel Prize. So what really happened? And why is Modi in Maun Viraat mode?” he said on X.
“If 5 fighter jets were really shot down, as Trump says, the nation deserves to know: Who authorised retaliation? What role did the U.S. play? Did India cave to foreign pressure?” the Congress leader said.
Silence cannot be the official response, he said.
Speaking at the White House during a dinner he hosted for Republican senators on Friday, Trump said: “You had India, Pakistan, that was going in fact, planes were being shot out of the air… four or five.”
“But I think five jets were shot down, actually, that was getting worse and worse, wasn’t it? “That was looking like it was going to go, these are two serious nuclear countries, and they were hitting each other,” he said.
“But India and Pakistan were going at it, and they were back and forth, and it was getting bigger and bigger. And we got it solved through trade.
“We said, ‘You guys want to make a trade deal. We’re not making a trade deal if you’re going to be throwing around weapons and maybe nuclear weapons’. Both very powerful nuclear states,” Trump said.
He said his administration achieved more in six months than almost any other administration could accomplish in eight years. “Something I’m very proud of, we stopped a lot of wars, a lot of wars. And these were serious wars,” Trump said.
The Congress has been demanding that Modi answer Trump’s India-Pakistan “ceasefire” claims in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha during the forthcoming Monsoon Session.
Since May 10, when Trump announced on social media that India and Pakistan had agreed to a full and immediate ceasefire after a long night of talks mediated by Washington, he has repeated his claim on several occasions that he helped settle the tensions between the two countries.
However, India has been consistently maintaining that the understanding on cessation of hostilities was reached following direct talks between the Directors General of Military Operations (DGMOs) of the two militaries on a request from Pakistan.
In a nearly 35-minute phone call with Trump last month, Modi firmly said that India does not and will “never accept” mediation and that the discussions between Indian and Pakistani militaries on cessation of military actions were initiated at Islamabad’s request.
India launched Operation Sindoor on May 7, targeting terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in retaliation against the Pahalgam attack that killed 26 civilians.
India and Pakistan reached an understanding on May 10 to end the conflict after four days of intense cross-border drone and missile strikes. (PTI)