'Pakistan Working Committee': BJP's Sambit Patra's jibe at Congress after Channi questions Balakot airstrikes

New Delhi: The BJP on Saturday said the Congress was repeatedly supplying "oxygen" to Pakistan, and slammed the opposition party for its leader Charanjit Singh Channi's remarks questioning the veracity of Balakot air strikes that followed the 2019 Pulwama terror attack.

"Inside it is the Congress Working Committee but outside it acts like Pakistan Working Committee," BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra alleged in a press conference.

Patra said it has become a pattern with the Congress that its resolutions and leadership speak in one voice, while its several other leaders speak in another.

He claimed that the Congress is full of pro-Pakistan leaders who make statements against India's interests, and mocked the party for its letter that had advised its functionaries to toe the official line on the issue.

The Congress Working Committee, the key organisation body of the party, passed a resolution on Friday asking the Centre to act with firmness and clarity to teach Pakistan a lesson for its continued export of terror to India.

Patra told reporters that immediately after the CWC passed the resolution Channi held a "parallel" press conference in which he questioned the genuineness of India's air strike in Balakot after the 2019 Pulwama terror attack and also taunted Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

He told reporters, "The Congress spares no occasion to supply oxygen to the Pakistani Army and terrorists and to boost their morale." Referring to the Pulwama attack, Channi said 40 Indian soldiers were killed and when elections were held, the government boasted of action.

"But we have never seen where in Pakistan the strikes were done and where people were killed. If someone threw a bomb in our country, will people not know? They claim to have conducted surgical strikes against Pakistan but nothing had happened. Surgical strikes were not seen anywhere and no one knew about them," the former Punjab chief minister said.

Asked if he had sought proof of those strikes, he said, "I have always been demanding that." He, later, backtracked following the BJP's counterattack and said no proof was needed.

Patra, however, hit back saying the oxygen supplied to Pakistan cannot be taken back.

The BJP leader said opposition leaders such as Akhilesh Yadav and parties like AAP were cited by a Pakistani senator for their questioning of the Modi government's stand, and added that Congress's Rahul Gandhi is now trying to join them in getting praise in the neighbouring country.

Patra referred to other controversial comments of several Congress leaders related to the Pahalgam terror attack to slam the party over a gap in its official pronouncements and its members' public comments.

He named Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah, Maharashtra MLA Vijay Wadettiwar, Himachal Pradesh minister Inder Singh, and Rahul Gandhi's brother-in-law Robert Vadra for allegedly raising issues on the terror attack, which left at least 26 civilians, mostly tourists dead.

Patra alleged that they have questioned the need for war and asked whether terrorists had indeed religiously profiled their victims, and said this raises questions about the sincerity of the Congress' official stand.

It is more than a coincidence and is in fact a pattern, he said.

The BJP leader asked if a string of such controversial remarks by Congress leaders has not lowered the morale of armed forces and Indians in general.

The Congress, he noted, has asked the government to spell out its strategy following the terror attack.

Patra said the moment Congress leaders are informed of the government's plans, they will seek to best each other in conveying the message to Pakistan.

In this context, he also took up Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma's repeated attack on Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi over the latter's alleged visit to Pakistan. Patra noted that Sarma has also said that Gogoi's children are not Indian citizens.

At the press conference, Patra flayed the Congress for claiming credit for the government's announcement of the caste census, saying the party in its over 60-year stint in power never carried out the exercise.

But the Modi dispensation will carry out independent India's first such caste enumeration exercise, he said.

It is like the slogans of Congress prime ministers on removing poverty, Patra said, adding that the Modi government is, however, succeeding in it.

Amid a row over the name 'Jagannath Dham' given to the newly constructed temple in Digha in West Bengal, Patra insisted that there can be only one Jagannath temple, which exists in Odisha's Puri, a constituency he represents in the Lok Sabha.