Surgical strike a cover-up for Pulwama intelligence failure: Siddaramaiah

Bengaluru: Former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah claimed here on Monday that the surgical strike against the terror camp in Pakistan was carried out to cover up the Union government's failure to prevent the terrorist attack on the CRPF convoy in Pulwama.

Participating in a meet-the-press programme organised by the Press Club of Bangalore and Bangalore Reporters' Guild, he said the people saw through such tactics and it would be foolish of the BJP to believe it would win an election on this issue.

“There were a series of failures on the part of the intelligence and IB, which resulted in the attack on the CRPF convoy at Pulwama. (If alerted) The CRPF convoy could have been sent by air instead of road. It was to cover up these (intelligence) failures, that the surgical attacks were carried out on Pakistan,” he argued, adding, “This is not the first time that India has conducted such surgical strikes. In the past too 10 or 12 surgical strikes were carried out when neither Prime Minister Narendra Modi nor the BJP were ruling the country. Where was Mr Modi when Bangladesh was liberated? It was Mrs Indira Gandhi who ruled the country at the time. When elected, it is the responsibility of the government and the Prime Minister to protect the country and its people. Whenever there is threat through external aggression, the country has to fight back.”

Contending that this Lok Sabha poll was not a contest between Mr Narendra Modi and Congress president, Rahul Gandhi, but between democracy and dictatorship, he argued that the struggle was to protect the Constitution and Constitutional bodies.

“The situation has changed drastically since 2014 when Mr Modi weaved a beautiful dream for India and the people believed him. But all he did was weaken the Constitutional bodies. First it was the RBI, then CBI and later the CVC. Now, even the judiciary has come to the streets. This has never happened in the history of the country,” he added, wondering why Mr Modi never mentioned his achievements, development or problems of the people in his election speeches.

“All he does is to criticise the opposition, calling it a Mahaghatbhandan, and talk of security of the nation and nationality. When seeking re-election, the Prime Minister is expected to talk about what he has done. In 2014, he promised to create two crore jobs every year ,but where are they? What happened to the promise of Rs 15 lakh being deposited in every citizen's account after bringing back all the black money parked outside the country? He had also promised to double the income of farmers. These should be the poll issues,” he observed.

To a question on differences among party workers, Mr Siddaramaiah maintained that once the coalition partners began campaigning together everything would fall into place.