lok-sabha-elections

Updated: May 14, 2019 14:55 IST

Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday took a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his comment that the Indian Air Force carried out the Balakot airstrikes despite cloudy weather because it would have helped the fighter jets evade Pakistan radars.

“Narendra Modi told officers that radar won’t be able to track aircraft in bad weather. So Modiji must answer if aircraft disappear from radar when it rains in India,” said Rahul Gandhi at a rally in Madhya Pradesh’s Neemuch, over 400 km from state capital Bhopal.

Rahul Gandhi’s sister and Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi had also targeted PM Modi over his comments. She accused him of indulging in rhetoric and said “he’s on the radar of the people”.

In an interview aired on Saturday, PM Modi had said, “The weather was not good on the day of air strike. There was a thought that crept in the minds of the experts that the day of strike should be changed. However, I suggested that the clouds could actually help our planes escape the radars.”

Also read: PM Modi’s ‘cloud benefit’ remark on Balakot strike sparks political row

PM Modi’s comment triggered a series of reaction on social media from opposition parties. BJP’s Twitter handle, which tweeted the PM’s remark soon after the interview, deleted it later.

On February 27, the Indian Air Force had carried out the airstrikes at the Jaish camp deep inside Pakistan. The government said the strikes were designed to destroy the training camp of the Jaish-e-Mohammed for the Pulwama suicide bombing 13 days earlier. Forty CRPF soldiers were killed in the February 14 bombing, the deadliest terror attack on security forces in Jammu and Kashmir in three decades.

Also read: PM Narendra Modi says he used email, digital camera in 1988. Twitter fact-checks