Shah equates WC win to surgical strike, sparks storm

Triggering a mini-tsunami on Twitter, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had dubbed India's World Cup win over Pakistan as another 'surgical strike'. But Pakistani biggies and many Indian cricket buffs were not impressed by this political twist to a cricketing encounter.

Shah had minced no words while tweeting: “Another strike on Pakistan by #TeamIndia
and the result is same. Congratulations to the entire team for this superb performance. Every Indian is feeling proud and celebrating this impressive win. #INDvPAK”

In their euphoric victory mood, Twitterati went berserk, pushing up the tweet with a massive 1.1 lakh tweets. But cricket purists, both Indian and Pak, baulked at the comparison. Why mix politics with sports, they wondered aloud in a flurry of tweets.

From across the border, veteran journalist Hamid Mir had his counter-point: “Mr @AmitShah, don’t confuse Cricket with your fake surgical strikes because I am an eye witness that your so-called surgical strike killed just one crow in Balakot. No doubt, Indian Cricket team played very well yesterday but Indian Air Force was an embarrassment in February 2019.”

For mediaman Rajdeep Sardesai, the equation with war was problematic. “Yes, it's a great win,” he tweeted. “But it's not war. No one died out there. We won because we played a much better game. There is still a World Cup to be won! Let’s do the chest thumping on 14th July!”

Now that the entire issue was caught in a political twister, there was no holding back the Opposition, still smarting from the May election defeat. Throughout the campaign they had alleged Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi politically milked the surgical strike.

Grabbing an opportunity to hit back, the Rashtriya Janata Dal took the Twitter route to take a swipe at Shah. The party tweeted: “Sir, please do a strike on encephalitis in Bihar. More than 200 kids have died due to it. Thanking you in anticipation!” The reference was to an outbreak of the disease in Muzzaffarpur.

But the Pakistanis were not finished yet. Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor, director general of the Pak Army's media wing Inter-Services Public Relations contended that “two things with different denominators can't be compared, so are strikes and match. If in doubt please see results of our Nowshere counter strikes.”

Amidst the flood of points and counter-points, this tweet by an Indian cricket fan, Anand D Jeyasekharan stood out: “How does this tweet contribute to building better relationships with a neighbour? It was an enjoyable cricket match, and I was glad to see the camaraderie between players on the pitch.”