A major Twitter war erupted on Monday between the ruling BJP and the Congress over the issue of Rahul Gandhi skipping 11 parliamentary standing committee meetings on defence. BJP president J.P. Nadda fired the first salvo on Wayanad MP Rahul Gandhi on social media platform. In a couple of tweets, he took a jibe at Rahul Gandhi over his constant attack on the government over the India-China border dispute.
On Monday morning at 9:55 am, Nadda posted his first tweet which said, “Rahul Gandhi does not attend a single meeting of the Standing Committee on Defence. But sadly, he continues to demoralise the nation, question the valour of our armed forces and do everything that a responsible Opposition leader should not do.”
In his next tweet after a minute, he added, “Rahul Gandhi belongs to that glorious dynastic tradition where as far as defence is concerned, committees don’t matter, only commissions do. Congress has many deserving members who understand parliamentary matters but one dynasty will never let such leaders grow. Really sad.”
As per the information available on the Lok Sabha website, Rahul Gandhi did not attend any of the committee’s meetings on the issue of defence so far. Armed with this information, other twitter handles of BJP leaders also started taking jibe on the Congress leader who has been leading his party’s charges on the Central government over a host of issues, including the border standoff with China and Covid-19.
After a few hours, Congress media head Randeep Surjewala came out with fresh attacks on the BJP government. In a series of tweets, he slammed the Central government over the issue of border disputes. He also accused the government for misleading the nation. Surjewala tweeted: “Dear Nadda Ji, daily insidious comments are making you look like a poorer version of malicious BJP spokespersons. Had the BJP and Modi Govt spent its energy in fighting China and supporting our Armed Forces, you wouldn’t need to lie on Chinese transgressions to mislead the nation.”
In another tweet, he said: “Did the Estimates Committee of Parliament headed by ex-BJP President, Sh. M.M. Joshi submit a report citing that Defence Expenditure was ‘lowest since 1962’ — lowest in 56 yrs? Is this Modi Govt’s way of enhancing the morale of our Armed Forces?”
Another tweet was about the report of the standing committee: “Pl answer- Did the Standing Committee on Defence headed by Gen B.C. Khanduri not hold that 68% of our ‘equipment is vintage’ & there are insufficient resources for ‘construction of strategic roads on China Border’? Did the Modi govt listen to the Defence Committee?”
Surjewala also tweeted about why did the Modi government shelve the creation of 90,000 strong “Mountain Strike Corps” to be carved out as a countermeasure to Chinese build up on our borders, and also:“Why did you deny our Armed Forces this strategic fire power to take on the Chinese forces?” Surjewala’s last tweet was about the withdrawal of Chinese forces: “Select news channels are running that Chinese forces are withdrawing from P-14 & our territory in Galwan Valley. If correct, we welcome & salute our forces. But the PM said no one ever occupied our territory. Did he then mislead the nation?
However none of the nine tweets of Surjewala gave any clarification on why Rahul Gandhi did not attend the Defence committee meetings.