Congress divided over Rahul Gandhi's line of attack on Jaishankar: 'Problematic...stretching it too far'

Congress MP Rahul Gandhi has sought to corner the government over EAM S Jaishankar's remarks. (File Photo: PTI)

The Congress appears to be in two minds over the line of attack chosen by their leader Rahul Gandhi and further articulated by its spokesperson Pawan Khera on Monday. A section of the party believes that Rahul's argument was too "problematic" and that Khera calling External Affairs minister S Jaishakar a "mukhbir (informer)" for Pakistan was "stretching it too far".

On Monday, Rahul Gandhi questioned Jaishankar over his remarks that India had informed Pakistan that it was striking at terror infrastructure in the neighbouring country and asked how many aircraft India "lost" as a result.

"EAM Jaishankar’s silence isn’t just telling — it’s damning. So I’ll ask again: How many Indian aircraft did we lose because Pakistan knew? This wasn’t a lapse. It was a crime. And the nation deserves the truth," Rahul said on a day Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri briefed the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs headed by the Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on developments regarding India and Pakistan.

Congress' media cell head Pawan Khera took the line of attack a step ahead at an AICC briefing and claimed Jaishankar’s remarks may have helped terrorists “escape”.

"Prime Minister Modi and the Foreign Minister will have to answer why this was done...The government should answer how many aircraft did the country lose. What losses did the country suffer? How many terrorists escaped? What does it mean that you informed them? Do you trust the terrorists so much that they will stay there once you inform them? What is your relationship with them? Do you call this strategy? I am sorry, but in village language, it is called mukhbiri (acting as an informant). This is spying, a crime and betrayal," Khera said taking cue from Rahul's statements over the past two days.

The joint attack by Rahul and Khera, seeking to corner Jaishankar over a remark that the MEA had later clarified, appears to have found few takers within the Congress with some leaders concerned that this new line of attack could end up hurting the party eventually.

"To call Jaishankar an informer is stretching it a bit too far. Every issue has a certain elasticity… you don’t stretch it to the bone. In politics, you try to make a point but don’t stretch it too far which hurts the original point," a party leader told The Indian Express.

Another leader who is also a member of the Congress Working Committee said it would have been better had the Congress raised specific lapses in a calibrated manner.

"There was an element of intelligence failure in the Pahalgam attack, there was mismanagement in the way the US President (first) announced the ceasefire… even agreeing to a ceasefire immediately. You could have made Pakistan beg for it for a couple of days… The fact that no big country stood with India on the issue of terrorism is another point… because it became a India-Pakistan war-like situation and world capitals were seeing it through the prism of war and not terrorism, which was the original issue… These are issues. But we should make these points in a calibrated manner," the leader said.

However, he appeared unsure if terming Jaishankar a "mukhbir" was a line of attack that had the approval of the leadership or "Khera's on-the-spot creation".

“I don’t agree… I don’t know whether it is a line decided by the party at the highest level or his (Khera’s) own on-the-spot creation,” the CWC leader said.

Another party leader said that the arguments being put forth by Rahul Gandhi, including the one where he is blaming Jaishankar for alleged "loss" of aircraft, was deeply "problematic".

"The country...is not in a position to know about losses suffered by our forces. We are entering a narrow lane, losing sight of the big picture," he said.

It is learnt that the issue of whether losses were suffered by India had figured in one of the meetings of the party's senior leadership last week where Gandhi spoke in detail about his assessment regarding the Chinese “involvement” in terms of the aircraft and missiles used by Pakistan.

However, the party decided not to make those points public and it was only when Jaishankar made the statement about "informing Pakistan" that Rahul perhaps saw an opportunity to corner the government, a leader said.

"At the start of the operation, we had sent a message to Pakistan saying we are striking at terrorists’ infrastructure. We are not striking at the military. So the military has an option of standing out and not interfering in this process. They chose not to take that good advice," Jaishankar said on Friday, referring to the call made by Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) Lt General Rajiv Ghai to his Pakistani counterpart Major General Kashif Abdullah after the Indian Armed Forces struck nine terror sites in Pakistan and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir between 1 am and 1.30 am on May 7.

Lt Gen Ghai had told his Pakistani counterpart that India had hit “carefully chosen” terror targets and had not struck military targets. A message was relayed to Pakistan that if it wanted to talk, India was willing to engage.

However, Rahul sought to spin the remark to suggest that India informed Pakistan about the attack even before Operation Sindoor had commenced. "Informing Pakistan at the start of our attack was a crime. EAM has publicly admitted that GOI did it. Who authorised it? How many aircraft did our air force lose as a result?" Rahul said in his first post on X Saturday.

The Ministry of External Affairs later clarified that Jaishankar's remark was clearly alluding to the early phase after Operation Sindoor’s commencement. "The External Affairs Minister had stated that we had warned Pakistan at the start, which is clearly the early phase after Op Sindoor’s commencement. This is being falsely represented as being before the commencement. This utter misrepresentation of facts is being called out," the MEA said in a statement.