India’s Congress party President Mallikarjun Kharge on Saturday said in a post on X that the Modi government had “misled the nation” amidst the furore over the Indian top general’s admission of losing aircraft to Pakistan.
A day after a BJP politician and staunch critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Subrahmanyam Swamy, claimed Pakistan had downed five Indian planes in the recent military escalation, India’s Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan confirmed yesterday that his country’s fighter jets were downed by Pakistan but did not specify any number.
“The Modi govt has misled the nation. The fog of war is now clearing,” Kharge wrote in the post.
He said that in the wake of the remarks made by the Indian CDS in Singapore in an interview, there were some very important questions which needed to be asked.
“These can only be asked if a Special Session of the Parliament is immediately convened,” he said.
“The Congress party demands a comprehensive review of defence preparedness by an independent expert committee, on the lines of the Kargil review committee,” he added.
Congress leader and Telangana Minister Uttam Reddy separately demanded transparency from the Indian government to reveal the extent of losses, Deccan Herald reported.
“The fact that the fighter aircraft were downed is something that the government needs to stop denying. The CDS himself mentioned that. “Earlier Air Marshal Bharti had mentioned it indirectly in his briefing along with the DGMO,” Reddy, himself a former air force pilot, was quoted as having said.
Indian fighter jets were shot down by the Pakistan Air Force on the night of May 6-7 in response to the Indian Air Force’s late-night missile strikes at six Pakistani sites, including Subhan Mosque in Bahawalpur’s Ahmedpur East, Bilal Mosque in Muzaffarabad, Abbas Mosque in Kotli, Umalkura Mosque in Muridke, the village of Kotki Lohara in Sialkot district, and Shakargarh.
Pakistan took down six Indian jets, including three advanced French Rafale planes. According to a Dawn.com report, the recent clash between India and Pakistan marks a significant development in the regional air power constellation. Three Rafales, one Su-30MKI, one Mirage 2000 and one MiG-29 were downed within a 40-minute span. Not one Pakistani jet crossed the border or engaged in close combat.
After intercepting drones sent by India on May 8 and tit-for-tat strikes on each other’s airbases on the night of May 9-10, it took American intervention on May 10 for both sides to finally reach a ceasefire.
The US-brokered ceasefire had brought a halt to a week of record escalation between Pakistan and India as the latter took a series of unprovoked military actions despite Islamabad’s call for a neutral probe into India’s allegations over the Pahalgam attack.
