BJP’s bid to win polls through army operations “shameful”: Manmohan Singh

NEW DLEHI (Web Desk): Like many others, former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also came down hard on Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for its unprovoked sentiments of warmongering against Pakistan.

During an interview with Hindustan Times, Singh acknowledged that during the term of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA), Indian armed forces “received a free hand to respond to external threats,” however, the BJP’s “attempt to gain electoral mileage from military operations are shameful and unacceptable.”

“For us, military operations were meant for strategic deterrence than to be used for vote garnering exercises,” Singh, 86, said.

He further slammed the BJP saying, “In the past 70 years, a government in power never had to hide behind the valour of our armed forces. Such attempts to politicise our forces are shameful and unacceptable. All this is being done to draw the attention away from unpardonable failures of Modi government on the economic front, on jobs, on rural distress, on micro small and medium enterprises and the informal sector.”

The erstwhile Indian PM also emphasized the fact that in the past five years, “internal security situation in Jammu & Kashmir has rapidly deteriorated on account of an opportunist PDP-BJP government.”