Rahul Gandhi Rakes Government Over Donald Trump's Lunch With Pak Army Chief

India's outreach to world leaders on Operation Sindoor and the message on Pakistani terror notwithstanding, US President Donald Trump had hosted Pak army chief Asim Munir at the White House last month. The government did not call out the US President over it, Congress's Rahul Gandhi pointed out in parliament today. 

Speaking in the Lok Sabha on the debate on Operation Sindoor, Mr Gandhi ripped into the government. 

With the Congress and its senior leaders - including party chief Mallikarjun Kharge and Priyanka Gandhi -- attacking the government on the question of accountability, Mr Gandhi took the argument forward, accusing the government of not being willing to fight -- not just the US but also Pakistan. T

Read: "Government Showed We Don't Have Political Will To Fight": Rahul Gandhi

"While our delegation is going around telling the world that Pakistan is carrying out terrorism, POTUS is having lunch with Asim Munir. Which planet is our foreign minister from?" Mr Gandhi said. 

Expanding on it, he said, "The mind behind Pahalgam is Asim Munir, and he is having lunch with Trump... Mr Trump has broken all protocol and inviting the man who committed terrorism in India....  the POTUS said he invited Munir to thank him for not escalating the war."

The government, he added, has not said a word to the US President.  Then he argued that not just the US, every nation had made their stance clear by not uttering a word of condemnation about Pakistan. "Not a single country condemned Pakistan but only condemned terrorism. This shows the mindset of these people," he said.  

This, he alleged, "explains why in his entire discussion yesterday, the defence minister did not use the word China even once. Meaning he is scared. We are facing a China-Pakistan fusion and it is dangerous time".

Moreover, at the end of the Operation, the government said any act of terror is an act of war, he said, alleging that through this, it has pushed itself into a corner: "This means that any terrorist who wants India to fight a war will carry out one attack and force India to fight a war... You have given them the power. The moment they want a war, they can carry out a terrorist attack."

The government, he said, has exposed its lack of political will to fight Pakistan, and during Operation Sindoor, had sent in the army without giving it the freedom to take action. "Rajnath Singh said 'Op Sindoor began at 1.05 am and at 1.35 am we called Pakistan to tell them we hit non-military targets'... the government is clueless about the Army, Navy and Air Force," he added, pointing to the "decisive" action of former Prime Minister and his grandmother Indira Gandhi during the Bangladesh war.