Fight over India-Pak 1991 pact: Cong calls it a peacetime agreement, BJP calls out its 'duplicity

New Delhi, May 23 (IANS) The startling ‘disclosures’ by BJP MP Nishikant Dubey on past Congress government inking a military pact with Pakistan in 1991, for exchanging information on movement of troops, has been rejected by the grand old party as ‘baseless, misleading and malafide’ charge.

The Congress party claimed that the document cited by the BJP MP was from a peacetime situation and hence doesn’t reflect the ugly reality of a war-like situation. However, the BJP went on the offensive, calling out its double standards over the latter demanding answers from the government on Operation Sindoor while brazenly trying to cover up its 'secret deal' with the neighbouring nation.

Senior Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan, speaking to IANS, said that the India-Pak agreement of 1991 clearly states that the understanding was only for military exercises and not for a wartime situation like ‘Operation Sindoor’.

He said that whenever large-scale military exercises are carried out by any country, the neighbouring nation is given information in advance as per the international norms, and the 1991 pact signifies a similar agreement.

Accusing the BJP MP of spreading ‘misinformation’, he said that giving information to the enemy nation in times of war compromises one’s own security, and hence the questions being posed to the External Affairs Minister by Rahul Gandhi are pertinent and valid.

“If Rahul Gandhi is asking what losses we have suffered during Operation Sindoor, there is nothing wrong with it. Foreign media is abuzz with many such reports, the government must come clean on this,” he said.

However, in criticising the BJP, the Congress leader went into an overdrive and asked why Pakistan awarded its Army chief with the ‘Field Marshal’ honour, if it was defeated and trounced by us.

Earlier in the day, BJP lawmaker Nishikant Dubey took to X and slammed Rahul Gandhi as well as Congress for signing a military pact with Pakistan, which called for ‘giving advance notice on exercises, manoeuvres and troops movement’. He claimed that the deal was inked at the behest of the then government, supported by the Congress party.

Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate refuted the charge, stating that this was signed after the Congress government pulled out from the then government and also said that this shows the BJP’s ‘acceptance of passing on crucial information to the enemy nation’ ahead of the military operation.

“The agreement whose details Nishikant Dubey is giving was for peacetime -- not for spying in case of war. And lastly, Rajiv Gandhi had withdrawn his support from Chandrashekhar's government on 6 March 1991. This agreement is dated 6 April 1991,” she said in a post on X.

Nishikant Dubey was quick to reject the Congress’ clarification and asserted that the agreement was actually ratified in 1992, when the Congress government was in power.

--IANS

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