Congress reminds Shashi Tharoor of UPA-era cross-border Ops after his ‘first surgical strike’ remark in Panama

An all-party Indian parliamentary delegation led by Shashi Tharoor visited Panama as part of the Modi government’s global outreach on terrorism following Operation Sindoor.

After Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said India crossed the Line of Control to carry out surgical strikes on a terror base “for the first time” under the Narendra Modi government in 2016, his party colleague Pawan Khera tagged him in several posts regarding UPA-time cross border strikes.

Khera posted a picture of “officers of 4 Sikh Regiment posing outside a captured Pakistani police station in Burki, Lahore District”.

Tagging Tharoor in this post, Khera said, “this image is from the Battle of Burki (also known as the Battle of Lahore, 1965), a significant engagement during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965…”

An all-party Indian parliamentary delegation led by Tharoor visited Panama as part of the Modi government’s global outreach on terrorism following Operation Sindoor.

Officers of 4 Sikh Regiment posing outside a captured Pakistani police station in Burki, Lahore District.This image is from the Battle of Burki (also known as the Battle of Lahore, 1965), a significant engagement during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, fought between Indian pic.twitter.com/5lzUrA3aOw

Pawan Khera (@Pawankhera) May 28, 2025

While addressing an Indian diaspora event in Panama, Tharoor said India crossed the Line of Control to carry out surgical strikes on a terror base “for the first time” under the Narendra Modi government in 2016.

"What has changed in recent years is that the terrorists have also realised they will have a price to pay, on that, let there be no doubt. When, for the first time, India breached the Line of Control between India and Pakistan to conduct a surgical strike on a terror base, a launch pad - the Uri strike in September 2015. That was already something we had not done before. Even during the Kargil War, we had not crossed the Line of Control; in Uri, we did, and then came the attack in Pulwama in January 2019,” he said.

The Congress has always countered this claim by the Modi regime, saying that Indian security forces conducted surgical strikes under the UPA government as well.

Khera also shared the remarks by former prime minister Manmohan Singh in an interview to  Hindustan Times, saying “multiple surgical strikes took place during our tenure too. For us, military operations were meant for strategic deterrence and giving a befitting reply to anti-India forces than to be used for vote garnering exercises”.

Udit Raj, the Congress spokesperson and former MP, also took a swipe at Tharoor on X Wednesday. “I could prevail upon PM Modi to declare you as super spokesperson of BJP, even foreign minister before (you land) in India,” he posted. “How could you denigrate the golden history of Congress by saying that before PM Modi, India never crossed the LoC and International Border? In 1965, the Indian Army entered Pakistan at multiple points, which completely surprised the Pakistanis in the Lahore sector. In 1971, India tore Pakistan into two pieces, and during the UPA government, several surgical strikes were unleashed, but drum beating was not done…”