PM Modi’s personal intervention boosted Operation Ganga

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “meticulous planning, diplomatic heft and personal monitoring” actually paved the way for the success of Operation Ganga, which was launched to evacuate Indian students and other citizens stranded in war-torn Ukraine. PM Modi’s evacuation mission “Operation Ganga” was lauded by various countries—from Bangladesh and Nepal to France, Germany, the US, the UK and Italy. “All this could not be possible without PM Modi’s direct intervention and control,” top Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) sources told The Sunday Guardian.
“Despite massive challenges and the complex situation, PM Modi in all the meetings continuously insisted not only on the safe evacuation of our nationals but also citizens of the other countries from the trouble-torn zones of Ukraine. While speaking to Russian and Ukrainian Presidents, the PM kept underlining the need to safely evacuate nationals of other countries”, officials, who were involved in the entire operation, told this newspaper. “Prime Minister continued to monitor the operation from two angles. One, he used to check whether the strategy to evacuate our nationals was being implemented properly. Two, the PM took every detail of how our rescue teams are addressing the SOS calls from the citizens of the other countries,” the officials said, adding, “in every meeting, PM Modi sought feedback and update on the progress of Operation Ganga on these two points, while zeroing in on the tasks to be carried out by him in terms of diplomatic outreach.”
“Operation Ganga was not carried out on the basis of the colour of the passport…rather humanity was central to it,” PM Modi said while interacting with those involved in this operation recently. “Over 90 tonnes of relief material were also provided to Ukraine,” he added. These words from PM Modi speak volumes of what policy and planning he had shared with Indian diplomats for Operation Ganga.
That around 147 nationals belonging to 18 countries apart from 23,000 Indian citizens could be evacuated safely from Ukraine amid complex and serious situations goes to the credit of PM Modi, says a diplomat. Apart from Nepal and Bangladesh, citizens of the US, Canada, Britain and France were also evacuated by India. These are some of the western countries that were questioning India’s stand on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. PM Modi’s focus has always been on the humanitarian aspect of the entire development, and a befitting message has gone out to these western powers as well, sources said. “Operation Ganga’s success exemplified the greatness of India and its values as people from several other countries were also evacuated. Wherever we live, we Indians never forget our values and commitment towards humanity.” That’s how PM Modi gave a message to the western countries whose citizens were virtually left unattended by their own nations.
“When the confusing and mixed signals from Ukraine were hampering the evacuation operation, PM Modi spoke to External Affairs Minister, S. Jaishankar and reached out to the Ukrainian leader that ensured clarity following which the mission could be expedited,” sources said. What is abundantly clear is that it was PM Modi’s direct intervention that helped Indian evacuation teams get a success.
External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar confirmed this in Parliament, saying, “Evacuation of Indian students from Sumy in Ukraine was extremely complex and needed a credible ceasefire which finally materialised due to the personal intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the Presidents of Ukraine and Russia.” Making a statement on the “Situation in Ukraine” in both Houses of Parliament, Jaishankar this week said, “The Prime Minister took up the issue of safe evacuation of Indians, especially from Kharkiv and Sumy.” According to sources, the moment PM Modi spoke to both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, initiatives were taken for a ceasefire so as to allow evacuation to be done safely. The PM had spoken to both the leaders on 7 March and earlier also, following which the evacuation mission got a fillip.
PM Modi’s outreach was not only limited to the Ukrainian and Russian leaders, but he also spoke to his counterparts from Romania, Slovak Republic, Hungary and the President of Poland to seek support for the facilitation in the entry of Indians to their countries. “PM Modi’s interactions with the leaders of Ukraine’s neighbouring countries helped the mission a lot as the operation got smoother after that,” said sources.