Today, speaking at the India Today conclave, BJP President Amit Shah took a dig at the former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for equating India with Pakistan. Lashing out against Manmohan Singh’s statement of peace he further added that India and Pakistan can never be equated as Pakistan uses terrorism as a foreign policy whereas India’s act was an act of self defense as a sovereign republic.
Earlier, former PM Manmohan Singh, in the context of escalating tensions between the two nations after the February 14 attack in Pulwama, noted, “On a day when our country is grappling with another crisis of mad rush of mutual self destruction played b/w India-Pak. Our basic problem is to get rid of chronic poverty, ignorance & disease which still afflict citizens in our 2 countries”.
#WATCH: Ex-PM Manmohan Singh, "On a day when our country is grappling with another crisis of mad rush of mutual self destruction played b/w India-Pak. Our basic problem is to get rid of chronic poverty, ignorance&disease which still afflicts citizens in our 2 countries… (27.02) pic.twitter.com/H1OJcyi3Rk
— ANI (@ANI) March 1, 2019
When asked about the reason of return of IAF Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, BJP President stated that the release of the Wing Commander from Pakistan was a diplomatic victory. Furthermore, Shah slammed Pakistan’s PM Khan for not condemning the suicide bombing that happened on February 14 in Pulwama that took the life of 40 brave CRPF personnel. “Why he was scared to do so?” asked Amit Shah.
Prior to this, giving the details of procedure of returning of Abhinandan Varthaman, Air Vice-Marshal R G K Kapoor told to media, “We are happy that our pilot who had fallen across the Line of Control and was in the custody of Pakistan is being released. We are extremely happy to have him back. We only see it as a gesture which is in consonance with the Geneva Conventions”.
The former PM, Manmohan Singh, seems to be talking in the same tone of Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan where he stated, “As a peace gesture we are releasing Wing Commander Abhinandan tomorrow”. However, the release of Wing Commander is not a gesture of peace as claimed by Imran Khan. There are a lot of things at work here. Firstly, it was the international pressure and secondly, it is the Geneva Convention. It must be noted here that both India and Pakistan are signatories to the Geneva Conventions and therefore, the neighbouring nation cannot evade its responsibility under the International Convention.
Moreover, if in case the IAF officer was not returned back to India, it will be considered as an act of war. And in that case, India could have taken any military action. Another noteworthy fact is that Pakistan is the same country which is begging for money from various countries all over the globe and it can’t afford war.
Coming back to the latest interview of Amit Shah in India Today Conclave, when Amit Shah was asked about the allegations of Modi Government using CBI and ED to target its opponents, shah said, “We did not have to do anything. They [the opposition] have themselves done so many things. All the cases that are going on against them were registered under the UPA. Why did the UPA register these cases? Just to fool people?”
For a long time, Congress party has hold back the Defense Forces, while they were all set for any counter insurgency attacks. However, the India under Modi Government is indeed is a new India and the one knows how to deal with these nefarious and shady elements.
