Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday apparently claimed that Modi was responsible for leaking information regarding the Balakot airstrikes to Republic TV editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami.
Rahul’s comments come after Goswami’s ‘leaked WhatsApp chats’ indicated that he knew about the Indian military’s intention to carry out airstrikes in Balakot, 2-3 days before the operation was conducted.
Earlier, the former Congress also slammed Modi and claimed that the PM was not doing anything to tackle Chinese intrusion in Arunachal Pradesh.
Addressing a roadshow in Tamil Nadu’s Karur district, he said only five people including the PM and the Defence Minister would have had prior information of the planned strikes.
Some days back it came out that a journalist knew about the air strikes in Balakot. Three days before the (Indian) air force bombed Pakistan, an Indian journalist was told it was going to happen,” he said.
This meant the lives of our IAF pilots were put at ‘risk,’ he added.
“Now, five people in this world knew about Balakot (air strikes). Prime Minister of India, the Defence minister of India, the National Security Adviser and the Chief of the Air Force and the Home Minister.”
“Nobody else in the world knew about Balakot before it happened. Now I want to understand why an enquiry has not been initiated on who told this journalist about Balakot before it happened. The reason is that one of these five people told this man. One of these five people betrayed our Air Force,” Gandhi alleged.
“If the Prime Minister did not do it then why is he not ordering an inquiry? Think about it. The only reason that the Prime Minister has not ordered an inquiry is that he is the person through whom that message has gone to this journalist,” Rahul Gandhi claimed.
Purported chats between Goswami and former Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) head Partho Dasgupta, which mentioned that the former was privy to the 2019 air strike, by the IAF on the biggest JeM training camp in Balakot had surfaced recently.
The IAF had carried out the airstrike deep inside Pakistan on February 26, 2019 in the wake of the killing of 40 CRPF personnel in Kashmir’s Pulwama district.