Operation Sindoor debate: When Modi's absence in RS spoke louder than his words

It is difficult to interpret Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision against replying to the discussion on Operation Sindoor in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday, July 30, as anything but a resounding acknowledgement of the Opposition getting the better of him in the marathon debate that began in Parliament on Monday ( July 28).

The prime minister had only on the previous evening given a 102-minute-long reply to the same discussion in the Lower House; one that was as high on self-praise and his typically contemptuous and factually misinformed criticism of the late Jawaharlal Nehru as it was low on answers to a volley of questions he faced from the Opposition, particularly on ownership of accountability and introspection.

Also read: Trump embarrasses Modi again? Ceasefire claim sparks political storm

Modi’s failure to turn up in the Upper House, however, may end up proving to be a graver miscalculation than his decision to evade the Lok Sabha Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi’s challenge of categorically rebutting US President Donald Trump’s claims of negotiating the post-Operation Sindoor ceasefire between India and Pakistan. For, in not turning up, the prime minister also reaffirmed his cavalier disregard for Parliament and its conventions.

With Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who spoke in Rajya Sabha in the PM’s stead, offering no rational explanation for the latter’s absence, Modi may have unwittingly dented the many narratives that the BJP had spun for over a decade to build his image.

Also read: 10 things S Jaishankar said on Operation Sindoor in Rajya Sabha today

The unyielding leader 'disappears'

The supposedly unyielding leader who told the nation back in 2019, "Saugandh mujhe iss mitti ki, Main desh nahi jhukne dunga" (I swear by India’s soil, I will never let the country bow down) and was undaunted by political rivals or global superpowers, made himself scarce from the Rajya Sabha during a discussion on critical issues related to India’s security and sovereignty.

That this disappearance came within hours of “dear friend” Donald Trump slapping India with a 25 per cent tariff plus a penalty after having already embarrassed Modi on 30 occasions in the past three months with repeated assertions of negotiating the India-Pakistan ceasefire speaks louder of Modi’s failures than his words on supposed successes.

It was no wonder that the Opposition ramped up its belligerence against Modi the moment it became clear that Shah, and not he, would be responding to the discussion in the Rajya Sabha.

MPs of the Opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance bloc, who had posed a series of serious and legitimate questions to the PM through the two days of discussion in the Upper House, staged a walk-out in protest moments after the home minister began speaking.

Also read: You gave away PoK, we will get it back: Shah's dig at Congress

PM 'ran away' after Trump's 'betrayal'

Outside Parliament, Lok Sabha MPs and other sundry leaders from the Opposition parties told reporters that the PM had “run away” from the Upper House after the latest “betrayal by his friend Donald Trump”.

Several Congress parliamentarians, including Lok Sabha’s Gurjeet Aujla, Varun Chaudhary, Deepender Hooda and Rajya Sabha’s Imran Pratapgarhi, told The Federal that Modi had proved Rahul Gandhi right.

“Now the whole country has seen why Rahul Gandhi used the ‘Narendra Surrender’ comment. Yesterday, Rahul had dared Modi in the Lok Sabha to say categorically that Trump was lying about forcing India to accept a ceasefire with Pakistan but in his entire speech Modi could not even utter Trump’s name,” Pratapgarhi said.

Also read: Modi’s speech in LS didn’t address Pahalgam ‘intel failure,’ Trump’s claims, says Oppn

“Today, he didn’t even have the courage to face the Rajya Sabha; he ran away knowing the Opposition will not just ask him the ceasefire but also the tariff and penalty that his friend has slapped on India.”

Ruling coalition unhappy too

Even a section of MPs from the ruling coalition expressed disappointment, predictably with a request for anonymity, at PM Modi’s absence from the Rajya Sabha.

“It’s a self-goal; the Opposition must be thrilled,” said a junior minister in the Modi government. A ruling coalition MP from Maharashtra conceded that “whatever little damage control we thought we had managed to do during the discussion on Operation Sindoor in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha since Monday has been undone”.

There can be no denying that if the marathon discussion on Operation Sindoor, spanning across three sittings of Parliament and clocking nearly 35 hours, were put to a vote, the Ayes, as the parliamentary jargon goes, would “have it” in both Houses.

Also read: 10 things PM Modi said about Operation Sindoor in Lok Sabha

The Centre’s clever phrasing of the discussion’s title – India’s strong, successful and decisive Operation Sindoor in response to terrorist attack in Pahalgam – could have even ensured that such a vote is carried with bipartisan support.

Opposition backed govt in Op Sindoor

In the aftermath of the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack, the Centre had received unconditional support from the entire Opposition to respond to Pakistan in any way it deemed appropriate. The Opposition had stood by that assurance right up until May 10, when Operation Sindoor launched on May 7 to avenge the massacre in Pahalgam, was “paused” abruptly.

The discussion in Parliament, too, made it clear that there was bipartisan support for the military operation and gratitude and respect for the valour of the Indian Armed Forces even if there were prickly questions for the government.

Also read: Priyanka Gandhi questions Centre’s accountability on Pahalgam attack

Yet, if the Centre was unable to exploit that rare bipartisan support in its favour, it is because the prime minister has evidently become a victim of his hubris. So much so that through the entirety of the discussion on Operation Sindoor, there was not even an unconditional expression of regret from the government over the intelligence and security lapses that allowed terrorists to kill 26 civilians in Pahalgam and pushed India to the brink of a full-scale war with Pakistan.

Forget an expression of grief, there wasn’t even an acknowledgment from Modi, Shah or anyone else from the Treasury Benches of the over two dozen lives lost in Jammu’s Poonch in ceasefire violations by Pakistan.

Speakers from the ruling coalition, instead, spoke of how temples, gurudwaras and civilian settlements in Poonch were targeted by the ‘enemy’.

Govt chose diversion over honesty

If the discussion in Parliament did not satiate India’s desire for answers to crucial questions on the Pahalgam attack and Operation Sindoor, it was because the government chose deflection, diversion and obfuscation over candour, humility and honesty.

This was not so because the right questions were not asked. Often slammed, and rightly so, over its ill-preparedness and disruptions, the Opposition, for once, was as precise in its questions and criticisms as the Indian forces were in targeting nine terror hubs in Pakistan during Operation Sindoor.

Besides Rahul Gandhi, Opposition leaders such as Priyanka Gandhi, Deepender Hooda, Supriya Sule, Kanimozhi, Akhilesh Yadav, Saayoni Ghosh, A Raja, Asaduddin Owaisi, Ruhullah Mehdi and others in the Lok Sabha and Mallikarjun Kharge, P Chidambaram, Sushmita Dev, Manoj Jha, Kapil Sibal and John Brittas in the Rajya Sabha, besides many others, raised pertinent and pointed questions.

If the answers did not come, it was because the government’s leading luminaries – Modi, Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, BJP president JP Nadda, to name a few – chose to offer none. Instead, the Centre indulged in whataboutery – blaming Nehru, questioning the Congress’ own track record of ’60 years in government’; all of which has been heard by the country on loop for the past 11 years each time the regime finds itself in a corner.

Centre silent on Pahalgam security lapse

And so, as the discussion came to an end with the anti-climax of Modi’s absence from the Rajya Sabha, it left neither Opposition leaders nor citizens at large any wiser on why the need for Operation Sindoor arose. There was no reply from the Centre on why or how its intelligence and security apparatus in Jammu and Kashmir failed to prevent the Pahalgam attack. There was no response on why the Centre had, even over 100 days since the attack, was unable to fix any accountability for these failures.

If the discussion in Parliament did not satiate India’s desire for answers to crucial questions on the Pahalgam attack and Operation Sindoor, it was because the government chose deflection, diversion and obfuscation over candour, humility and honesty.

Questions over whether India lost any jets, particularly its Rafales, during the Op Sindoor conflict, received no direct response from the Centre nor did queries on the circumstances that triggered the Indian Armed Forces to accept a ceasefire just when the country was being told that a complete dominance over the Pakistani side had been achieved?

The Centre also maintained a disturbing silence on Rahul and the wider Opposition’s specific question over India’s military preparedness against China considering that it was now well known that the Pakistani side had full Chinese support, weaponry included, throughout the four-day armed escalation.

Jaishankar’s claim of there being no direct communication between Modi and Trump between April 22 and June 17 and the Prime Minister’s assertion of no country stopping India from acting against Pakistan was not the direct response India hoped for to the simple question of whether Trump’s claim of a US-brokered ceasefire had any truth.

Was this obfuscation coupled with Modi’s mysterious absence from the Rajya Sabha discussion an answer, an admission of what the government couldn’t dare say out loud? The government obviously won’t tell.