New Delhi : Taking potshots at the Congress over former information and broadcasting minister Manish Tewari’s admission that the troop movement story published by the Indian Express in 2012 was ‘unfortunate but true’, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today said the grand old party must publically apologise for questioning the integrity of the armed forces.
“I think it’s highly condemnable that the Congress leaders have always questioned our highly disciplined armed forces.. This is the latest attempt to defame the armed forces,” BJP spokesperson GVL Narsimha Rao told ANI here.
“We expect the Congress Party to publically apologise for questioning the integrity and intention of our armed forces, who have always served this country with great distinction,” he added.
The BJP leader also took a jibe at the Congress leaders for denying the admission of their ‘valued colleague’ Tewari and said that it exposed the hypocrisy of the grand old party.
“It’s very apparent that the Congress Party as a strategy adopts some of the most virulent attackers from the party to speak in different voices,” Rao said.
“The Congress Party deliberately speaks in different tones to mislead the people. We condemn the Congress Party’s attempts to defame the armed forces,” he added
Another BJP leader Nalin Kohli questioned the timing of Tewari’s admission and asked as to why such a disclosure was not made during the Congress-led UPA regime.
“Why did he not disclose these things when they were in the government? It appears that the Congress Party is following a distinct strategy wherein when they were in government they said something and something different when they are not in the government,” he added.
Tewari had yesterday brushed aside allegations that the news item published on April 4, 2012, was fake.
“At that time, I used to serve in the standing committee of defence. And it is unfortunate, but the story was true. The story was correct,” he said at an event in Delhi.
The Indian Express had on April 4, 2012, reported that late on the night of January 16, 2012 (the day then Army Chief General V.K. Singh approached the Supreme Court on his date of birth issue), central intelligence agencies reported an unexpected (and non-notified) movement by a key military unit from the mechanised infantry based in Hisar (Haryana) as a part of the 33rd Armoured Division (which is a part of 1 Corps, a strike formation based in Mathura and commanded by Lt Gen. A K Singh) in the direction of the capital, 150 km away. (ANI)