Criticising the Modi government's global outreach following Operation Sindoor, veteran Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar on Saturday sparked a row after he claimed that none of the countries where Shashi Tharoor and his delegation visited condemned the Pahalgam terror attack, and neither blamed Pakistan.
Continuing his attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre, the former union minister said that India has also failed to provide any evidence which could prove that Pakistan was responsible for the Pahalgam attack.
"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," Aiyar said, while speaking to news agency IANS.
"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," he added.
Tharoor, his delegation visited several nations, including US
Tharoor led a delegation that visited several countries, including the United States (US), Panama, Guyana, Brazil and Colombia, to project India's stance following Operation Sindoor, which the government had carried in response to the deadly Pahalgam attack that claimed 26 lives, mostly tourists.
Tharoor's delegation included BJP's Tejasvi Surya, Bhubaneswar Kalita and Shashank Mani Tripathi, Shiv Sena's Milind Deora, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader Ganti Harish Madhur Balayogi, and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) MP Sarfaraz Ahmad.
Congress keeps attacking Tharoor
Congress, meanwhile, has regularly attacked Tharoor over his constant support for the Modi government over the Operation Sindoor and Pahalgam attack. However, the Thiruvananthapuram MP has remained firm on his stance over support to the Modi government.
"Which is your first loyalty? To my mind, the nation comes first. Parties are a means of making the nation better. So, to my mind, whichever party you belong to, the objective of the party is to create a better India in its own way. Now, parties have every right to disagree about the best way of doing that," he had said last month.
"As you know, a lot of people have been very critical of me because of the stand I have taken, supporting our armed forces and our government, and what happened recently in our country and our borders. But I will stand my ground, because I believe this is the right thing for the country," he said.
