The biggest blow to Congress’ claim of conducting Surgical Strikes has been dealt by General V.K. Singh, former Chief of Army Staff (COAS), and now a Member of Parliament from the BJP and MoS External Affairs. He accused the Congress party of lying, said there was no surgical strike by India in his tenure and demanded to know which surgical strike exactly they are attributing to his tenure as COAS.
https://twitter.com/Gen_VKSingh/status/1124568601317363712?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Another former COAS, Retired General Bikram Singh, too, had echoed similar sentiments in 2016. It was clear that no such strikes were conducted during his tenure and he did not think such attempts were made earlier as well. General Bikram Singh was COAS from 2012-2014 and succeeded General V.K. Singh.
https://twitter.com/IndiaToday/status/781859115060473858?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
General Ved Prakash Malik, who was COAS between 1997-2000, too, said that he wasn’t aware of any such strikes either.
https://twitter.com/Vedmalik1/status/1124401684774629378?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Therefore, three COAS, two of them who were COAS during the UPA regime, claim that no such surgical strikes were ever carried out by the UPA government. It appears the Congress party was so secretive that they managed to conduct Surgical Strikes without informing the Armed Forces of the country as well.
Moreover, the number of strikes that the UPA government apparently conducted keeps changing with remarkable frequency. We have documented the phenomenon here. Moreover, on the same day that Rajiv Shukla claimed that the Congress party had conducted 6 surgical strikes, Rahul Gandhi in his interview to India Today claimed that Manmohan Singh’s government had conducted 3. And today, in his press conference, the Congress President again fell back to 6.
https://twitter.com/republic/status/1124535017168707584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
It’s quite a spectacle that’s unfolding here. The COAS during the UPA regimes claims that they are not aware of any such surgical strikes. The Congress party claims on the number of surgical strikes vary from 2 to 15. It’s so bewildering that on the same day, one senior Congress leader claims UPA conducted 6 surgical strikes while the Congress President in an interview says it only conducted 3.
Therefore, Congress doesn’t appear to have much clue about the surgical strikes that were conducted, the Armed Forces have no clue about the surgical strikes that were conducted. And yet, the people of this country are expected to believe them when they say that surgical strikes were indeed conducted during the UPA regime. It’s quite a fascinating story indeed.
In fact, an RTI query last year to the DGMO had also revealed that there have been no surgical strikes on Pakistan prior to September 2016.