NDA govt released Azhar: Rahul's counter to BJP on nationalism

New Delhi: Taking the BJP's nationalism narrative head-on, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said the Indian Army is not Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "personal property" and accused the saffron party of compromising in dealing with terrorism, citing JeM chief Masood Azhar's release during the previous NDA rule.

Asserting that terrorism is a huge issue, he said the Congress will deal with it "more sternly" than Modi and alleged that the BJP was using the armed forces for political mileage.

Gandhi, while addressing a press conference at the party headquarters here, said Modi insulted the Army by saying UPA's surgical strikes were video games.

His attack on Modi came a day after the prime minister said the Congress conducted surgical strikes only "on paper" and the leaders of the opposition party thought those were akin to video games.

It was a BJP government that had released Azhar and sent him to Pakistan, Gandhi said.

"Who had sent him to Pakistan? He is being designated, but who sent him there in the first place? How did he reach Pakistan?

Has the Congress party sent him to Pakistan? Which government had negotiated with terrorism, bowed in front of terrorism, who sent him back?" he asked, alluding to Azhar's release in the Kandahar hijacking case during the NDA rule in 1999.

"The Congress did not send him (Azhar) back. The reality is that the BJP compromises (with terrorism).

The Congress has never done such a thing. The Congress party has never sent a terrorist to Pakistan and will never do so," Gandhi said.

Azhar and two other terrorists -- Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar and Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh -- were released by the then Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led government in exchange for the passengers held hostage on board Indian Airlines flight IC-814, which was hijacked to Kandahar in Afghanistan.

Then foreign minister Jaswant Singh had accompanied Azhar in a special aircraft and National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval, then a top Intelligence Bureau (IB) official, was in Kandahar as part of India's negotiating team when the terrorists were handed over.