Manish Tewari trolls Union ministers over greeting Indians on evacuation flights

|HT|

Congress leader Manish Tewari on Wednesday hit out at Union ministers getting inside rescue flights to address evacuated citizens and called the acts political public relations and propaganda. He said rescuing Indians from a war zone is the Union government’s duty and the latter is not doing any favour on anyone. “The behaviour of some of these ministers is absolutely absurd and laughable. Young Indian students who barely escaped with the skin of their teeth from a battle zone are being subjected to sanctimonious homilies by these ministers, clamouring on to aircraft in order to do their own political public relations and propaganda in beyond silly,” the Congress MP from Punjab said. Recalling India’s evacuation efforts since the Gulf wars and beyond, Tewari said every government at the Centre has ensured to do whatever they could to bring citizens out. He referred to Saddam Hussain’s invasion of Kuwait when the then Indian Airlines made a huge airlifting of stranded citizens. He said even the Indian Air Force was involved in the evacuation process.

“Therefore, if this government is bringing Indians out (of war-hit Ukraine), it is not doing anybody any favour. It is the job of the Government of India to protect the life and liberty of Indian citizens. My appeal to them would be to get on to their work. There are a large number of Indians who are still stuck in Ukraine and stop giving these sanctimonious homilies… I don’t know if these ministers watch themselves after they do these gigs. It’s absurd and demeaning,” he further said. Congress leader Siddaramaiah slammed the Modi government for naming the evacuation mission as ‘Operation Ganga’. He said the naming was aimed at raising the BJP’s publicity during the ongoing election in Uttar Pradesh. “It is unfortunate to note that @BJP4India leaders sees every crisis as an opportunity to increase their publicity. @narendramodi is using the name of river Ganga for the evacuation operation so that it helps BJP in UP elections. I hope river Ganga cleanses the sins of BJP.”

The Congress has launched a "SpeakUpForStudents" campaign on social media in favour of students to exert pressure on the Narendra Modi government to take steps to ensure early safe evacuation of all Indian students from Ukraine.

The Opposition party has been questioning the delay in evacuation of all Indians from war-struck Ukraine after Russia attacked it and criticised its response. Taking to Twitter, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi wrote, "To avert further tragedy, the Government of India (GOI) must share: How many students have been evacuated. How many are still stranded in Ukraine. Region-wise detailed evacuation plan."

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