Centre to send multi-party delegations abroad to brief on Pakistan's role in cross-border terror & Operation Sindoor

New Delhi: Intensifying the perception war against Pakistan, Government has decided to send around half-a-dozen multi-party delegations to various countries from next week to brief them about Pakistan's role in perpetrating cross-border terror and in the April 22 Pahalgam attack as well as Operation Sindoor.

Sources said MPs and leaders of various parties, including the BJP and the Congress, have been asked to join the delegations, which are likely to start travelling out of India from May 22 or 23. The delegations will visit different countries for a period of 10 days. 

While there is no official word on the composition of the delegations and the countries that are being planned to visit, sources said there could be around eight delegations with 5-6 members each.

A senior Opposition MP, who was approached by the government, said they were not given specifics but had been asked to be ready for travel around May 22. MPs and leaders from BJP, Congress, Trinamool Congress, DMK, NCP(SP), JDU, BJD and CPI(M) among others have been approached.

Before the delegations leave India, the Ministry of External Affairs would brief them. A senior official of the MEA will also be part of the delegation while Indian embassies in the countries being visited by the delegations will coordinate their meetings.

While former Union minister Anurag Thakur, Aparajita Sarangi and  Samik Bhattacharya are among the BJP members to be part of these delegations, Congress MPs in the teams are likely to be Shashi Tharoor, Manish Tewari, Salman Khurshid and Amar Singh.

Tharoor is likely to lead the delegation to the United Kingdom and United States while Prasad will lead the team to the middle-east. Tewari may lead a delegation to Europe while Khurshid, a former External Affairs Minister, will lead a delegation of seven MPs to south and southeast Asia, covering countries such as South Korea, Japan and Singapore.

NCP-SP's Supriya Sule is likely to lead a delegation to the Middle East and Africa countries, including Oman, Egypt, Kenya and South Africa, in which BJP’s Thakur is also included. Sarangi will be part of the delegation to southeast Asia. Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi will be part of a delegation to Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Kuwait and Bahrain.

Trinamool Congress' Sudip Bandyopadhyay, JD(U)'s Sanjay Jha, BJD's Sasmit Patra, NCP-SP's Supriya Sule, DMK's K Kanimozhi, CPI(M)'s John Brittas and AIMIM's Asaduddin Owaisi are also likely to be part of the delegations. Former Minister of State for External Affairs V Muralidharan (BJP) and veteran Kashmiri leader Ghulam Nabi are also likely to join the delegations.

Congress General Secretary (Communications) Jairam Ramesh confirmed that Congress would be participating in the exercise and party president Mallikarjun Kharge would decide about the participants. He said Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju had telephoned Kharge.

"The Prime Minister has refused to chair two all-party meetings and not agreed to call a special session of Parliament. The PM and his party have been defaming Congress continuously...Now suddenly the PM has decided to send delegations abroad to explain India's stand on terrorism from Pakistan. Congress always takes a position in the supreme national interest and never politicised national security issues like the BJP does," he said.

The exercise is seen as New Delhi's efforts to counter Pakistan's narrative focussing on internationalising the Kashmir issue, riding on US President Donald Trump's contentious statements. Sources indicated that the delegations would impress upon their hosts that India is a victim of cross-border terrorism and how India was targeted in Pahalgam.

The delegations are also expected to convince countries that Operation Sindoor was only aimed at targeting terrorist infrastructure and bring the narrative back on terrorism.