Trump’s remark on five jets downed revives row over Operation Sindoor losses.
New Delhi: US President Donald Trump has given the Congress party fresh ammunition to target Prime Minister Narendra Modi after Trump stated that five fighter jets were lost during the four-day Operation Sindoor in May this year, when India was engaged in a bitter conflict with Pakistan.
Trump, while speaking at a dinner with Republican lawmakers at the White House, did not specify which country’s aircraft were downed.
Trump said, “You had India, Pakistan, that was going… in fact, planes were being shot out of the air… four or five. But I think five jets were shot down actually… that was getting worse and worse, wasn’t it? That was looking like it was going to go… these are two serious nuclear countries, and they were hitting each other.”
Trump’s remarks came in the wake of his repeated claims of brokering a ceasefire between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.
The Congress, and especially Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, had been continuously asking the government and the Prime Minister how many jets India had lost during Operation Sindoor, which was launched in response to the Pahalgam terror attack on April 22.
With new claims from the US President, Rahul Gandhi received new ammunition in his arsenal just ahead of the crucial Parliament’s Monsoon Session, to corner the government over how many fighter jets India had lost when it launched Operation Sindoor on May 7. In his fresh jibe at the Prime Minister, Rahul Gandhi, who is also the former Congress chief, in a post on X shared the video of the US President where he made the claims, though without specifying which country lost the jets.
Rahul Gandhi asked, “Modi ji, what is the truth of five jets? The country has every right to know.”
This is not the first time Rahul Gandhi has fired the same salvo at the government.
Earlier, Rahul Gandhi and the Congress party had demanded that the government convene a special session of Parliament to discuss the Pahalgam terror attack and Operation Sindoor. Even I.N.D.I.A bloc partners had jointly written to the Prime Minister to convene a special session of Parliament or attend an all-party meeting over the terror attack as well as Operation Sindoor. Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh, who is also the party’s communications in-charge, targeted the government and said the “Trump missile” had been fired just two days before the Monsoon Session, and the Prime Minister needs to make a categorical statement in Parliament on what the US President has been claiming over the past 70 days.
The Congress Rajya Sabha MP said, “Just two days before the Monsoon Session of Parliament begins, the Trump missile gets fired for the 24th time with the same two messages: The US stopped the war between India and Pakistan, two countries that have nuclear weapons. And no trade deal if the war continued. So if India and Pakistan want a trade agreement with the US, they have to agree to an immediate ceasefire.”
Ramesh added: “The sensational new revelation by President Trump this time around is that five jets may have been downed.”
“The Prime Minister, who has had years of friendship and huglomacy with President Trump going back to Howdy Modi in September 2019 and Namaste Trump in February 2020, has to now himself make a clear and categorical statement in Parliament on what President Trump has been claiming over the past 70 days,” he said.
The Congress had already held a meeting of its Parliamentary Strategy Group and decided to raise the Pahalgam terror attack and Operation Sindoor during the Monsoon Session.
With the new revelations by the US President, the Monsoon Session is all set to be a stormy one, where opposition parties will pressurize the government to hold a detailed discussion on the same and will also demand a statement from the Prime Minister himself.
The Indian government has consistently maintained that the two sides halted their military actions following direct talks between their militaries, without any mediation by the US.
