Mani Shankar Aiyar Fires 'Op Sindoor' Broadside At Shashi Tharoor

Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar has taken a swipe at party MP Shashi Tharoor's foreign visits as part of India's global outreach to inform other nations of Pakistan's role behind the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam.

Mr Aiyar said none of the 33 countries where India sent MPs to present the country's views on Pakistan's state policy of sponsoring terrorism had blamed that country for the terror attack in Pahalgam that killed 26 tourists.

Mr Aiyar took particular aim at Mr Tharoor, who the Centre had selected for the delegation to the US, despite the Congress not recommending his name.

"None of the 33 countries that Tharoor and his team visited blamed Pakistan for the Pahalgam terror attack. Neither the UN nor the United States have held Pakistan responsible," Mr Aiyar told news agency IANS.

Mr Tharoor is a career diplomat who has served with the UN before he returned to India and joined politics.

"We are the only ones saying that Pakistan is behind it, but no one is willing to believe us. We haven't been able to present any evidence that convinces people about which Pakistani agency carried out this act," Mr Aiyar said.

"Shashi Tharoor and his friends can roam around as much as they want, but apart from Israel, no one else has said that Pakistan was behind the Pahalgam terror attack. Everyone is condemning terrorism, but no one is willing to blame Pakistan," he added.

Mr Aiyar alleged the government lacked the courage to call out misinformation from global powers, including US President Donald Trump.

"Trump has claimed several times that the US brokered the ceasefire agreement between India and Pakistan, but our government is not ready to say that he is lying. The government does not dare to speak the truth," the Congress leader said.

India launched Operation Sindoor in early May to destroy nine terror infrastructures in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir in retaliation for the Pahalgam terror attack.

Three of the terrorists who participated in the Pahalgam attack were killed earlier this week in an encounter with the security forces.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday came down heavily on the Congress-led Opposition for "raising questions" about Operation Sindoor "instead of paying tributes to the valour displayed by our armed forces".

He also alleged the Congress had been "soft" on insurgency while in power, and tried to "frame innocent people" by spinning the theory of "saffron terror" because of "vote bank" considerations.

"Recently, we had discussions in both houses of parliament on Operation Sindoor. Both debates lasted for 16 hours each. The Opposition, which had started off on a belligerent note, was left dumbstruck," Mr Singh said at an event in Delhi.