The Congress party recently claimed that the Congress government, too, had conducted surgical strikes during its regime. It had attracted much mockery including comments by the Prime Minister who said that the Congress conducted surgical strikes that no one, the terrorists, the Army or the India people, had any clue about.
Former COAS General V.K. Singh, earlier today, chastised the Congress party today. Accusing them of lying, he demanded to know exactly which surgical strikes were they attributed to his tenure as COAS. General Bikram Singh, who was COAS between 2012-14, too, said in 2016 that such strikes had not happened earlier.
Lt. General (R) D.S. Hooda, who headed the Surgical Strikes and has been associated with the Congress party in recent times, has, however, claimed that cross border operations were carried out during the UPA regime. Lt Gen Hooda had recently joined hands with the Congress party to lead Rahul Gandhi’s ‘task force’ on ‘national security’.
https://twitter.com/ANI/status/1124598943705231361?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
His statement today appears inconsistent with statements he had made during his interview with Arnab Goswami in 2017. He has specifically stated then that the Surgical Strikes weren’t normal cross border operations. “We need to do go ahead and do something … we need to do something larger than normal operation,” he had said then.
https://twitter.com/iMac_too/status/1124623326507180032?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
He had told Arnab about the Surgical Strikes, “In this case, we were looking at going a little deeper, we were looking at a much more comprehensive operation.” He added, “We were not going a hundred meters, hitting some forward posts, hitting some patrols of the Pak Army and come back. We had to go in and look at terrorist camps and terrorist camps were much deeper. Most of the actions that used to take place were military to military operations which were carried out at the Line of Control. But to go in and hit specifically terrorist camps and launch pads which are much deeper inside, for that detailed planning is required.”
https://twitter.com/iMac_too/status/1124635669567946753?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Thus, from the Army Man’s own statements, it appears that although military operation did occur during the Congress regime, the Surgical Strikes were on an entirely different plane altogether that required much deeper planning, was much more comprehensive and the Armed Forces had to go much deeper into Pakistani occupied territory to achieve the desired goals.