In a bitter attack on the Congress, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said that the party's "chhoti soch" (narrow mindedness) was stopping it from seeing any merit in celebrating the 2016 cross-LoC surgical strikes on terrorist launch pads.
"We all know the attitude of the Congress on surgical strikes. They keep raising questions over surgical strikes even today, opposing the government and opposing the nation's armed forces? Also doubting the armed forces' valour and courage?" he said while addressing the BJP workers in Rajasthan's Chittorgarh through video conferencing.
"In their bid to oppose the government, they began opposing the nation. This antagonism has become the character of the Congress party," he added.
Responding to a question by a BJP worker, Modi said that the opposition had even questioned the utility of the Pokhran-II nuclear tests and the Congress party did not even see any merit in observing the Kargil Vijay Diwas.
"The Congress does not observe the Kargil Vijay Diwas even today. One of their leaders said they could not see any reason to celebrate the Kargil victory as the war was fought on India's land, that this victory is meaningless. They said it was an NDA-era war and so NDA could celebrate it. Such narrow-mindedness, lowly thinking," Modi said.
He also attacked Congress President Rahul Gandhi for meeting the Chinese Ambassador at the height of the 73-day Doklam stand-off with that nation last year.
"The Congress President, without taking anyone into confidence, met the Chinese ambassador during Doklam episode. If the Congress President wanted to know something on Doklam, he could have asked the External Affairs Minister. But, he was more interested in knowing the Chinese perspective," he said.
The government is observing the second anniversary of the surgical strikes -- conducted by the special forces on the intervening night of September 28-29 in 2016 -- as a three-day Parakram Parv' at 53 locations in 51 cities across India.
