Did Pak kill 40 in Pulwama to help Modi, asks Kejriwal

Delhi Chief Minister and AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal kicked off a storm on Thursday as he said there were questions whether Pakistan engineered the Pulwama terror strike on CRPF personnel to help Prime Minister Narendra Modi get re-elected.

Kejriwal's fresh attack on Modi came after Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said that there is a better chance for peace talks if Modi returns to power.

"Pakistan and Imran Khan are openly supporting Modi-ji. It is clear now that Modi ji has some secret pact with them. Everyone is asking - did Pakistan kill 40 of our brave soldiers in Pulwama on February 14 just before elections to help Modi-ji?" Kejriwal said on Twitter, in response to a tweet by Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy.

Kumaraswamy tweeted on Wednesday night, "we lost 40 jawans under Narendra Modi's watch but when the Opposition objected to politicising the army, he accused us of having supporters in Pakistan. But the truth is out now. Imran Khan supports Modi and says Pakistan prefers Modi as the Indian PM. So, who has the support of our enemies?"

Responding to Kejriwal's tweet, a former diplomat K C Singh said the game was "much bigger". The "US has helped Netanyahu win by foreign policy steps. US-UAE-Saudis have been handing 'wins' to Modi by deporting Indians, mediating between India and Pakistan etc. Imran Khan spilled the beans, as he's been given some assurances. What are they?"

Referring to BJP chief Amit Shah's comments that "we will ensure implementation of NRC in the entire country. We will remove every single infiltrator from the country, except Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs", Kejriwal said that Pakistan and Khan want riots to spread in India.

"That is why Pakistan has been helping open all the way to make Modi a PM again. The work that Pakistan did not do in 70 years, its friend Modi did it in five years - India's harmony is disrupted," he said.

Opposition parties had on Wednesday targeted Modi and the BJP over Khan's comments.

Modi had been accusing the Opposition of playing to the tunes of Pakistan and had even used the same in Gujarat, when he had claimed that the ISI wanted to fix the Assembly results in favour of Congress and that it wanted senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel as the Chief Minister.

Khan's comment has come as blessing in disguise for Opposition, who was trying to blunt Modi's rhetoric on national security.