Team News Riveting
New Delhi, November 23
Congress seems to be struggling to deal with the “book bomb” that its leaders are detonating; this time its former Minister and Member of Parliament Manish Tewari.
Tewari’s “10 Flash Points, 20 Years: NationaL Security Situations That Impacted India” is published by ‘Rupa’ and is set to hit the stands on December 1.
The Congress leader observed in his book that India should have acted against Pakistan after 26/11, when the party-led UPA was in power. It has triggered a fresh row just days after controversy over comparisons between “Hindutva” and Islamist terror groups by Salman Khurshid in his book.
The BJP, which ripped into the Congress and Khurshid for his book, got another ammo to fire at its opposition and termed it a “confession of the failures of the Congress”.
“(With reference to) what Manish Tewariji said in his book, which we all have seen in the media, it would not be wrong to say that the facts that have come out. It would be appropriate to call it a confession of the failure of the Congress…” the BJP’s Gaurav Bhatia told reporters.
“The gist of this book is that restraint can be considered weakness… India should have taken strict action (after the 26/11 attacks)… Today it became clear the Congress government was insincere, useless… they were not even concerned about issues like national security,” he added.
“Congress President Sonia Gandhiji, Rahul Gandhiji will you break your silence today? Sonia Gandhiji, our question is why India’s brave army was not given permission and free will at that time?” he said.
Tewari responded saying he was “rather amused” by the BJP’s reaction to “one excerpt from a 304-page-book”. “I wonder would they (the BJP) react similarly to some hard analysis about their handling of the National Security Remit also,” he added.
