PM and GoI must rise above ‘Petty politics and Propaganda films’: Asaduddin Owaisi

AIMIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi on Wednesday said PM Modi and the government must rise about their petty politics and propaganda films, criticising defence minister Rajnath Singh’s statement in the Rajya Sabha concerning the accidental missile-firing which landed in Pakistan. Citing the Bloomberg report that has claimed that India’s accidental missile-firing prompted Pakistan to prepare a retaliatory strike, Owaisi said the defense ministry’s statement told nothing.

“Is its true that there were more missiles on the launcher which had to be stopped from taking off after the first one did? Do we even imagine the consequences of such action between two nuclear-armed countries?” Owaisi posted in a thread of tweets.

“The report says that the missile would have gotten armed if it had reached its designated target. What was the designated target and does that mean that the missile was with a warhead?” Owaisi asked and wrote rising above petty politics and propaganda films, the PM and the government must focus on being transparent and honest about the missile accident. “India has a global reputation as a responsible nuclear power and it can’t be allowed to be destroyed because of this incompetent government,” Owaisi tweeted.

According to the Bloomberg report, Pakistan had prepared to launch a similar missile to strike India but held back because an initial assessment indicated something was amiss.

On March 9, an accidental firing of a missile took place and the government ordered a high-level Court of Enquiry. Briefing Parliament on the incident, Rajnath Singh it was regrettable. The accidental firing was caused during routine maintenance, the minister said.

Though Owaisi, in his attack, did not mention the name of any film, his jibe comes following PM Modi’s praise of Vivek Agnihotri’s The Kashmir Files, which has stoked a political controversy with state chief ministers, politicians endorsing the movie on Kashmiri Pandits. Talking about the film, Owaisi in television interviews said, “Did PM Modi come to know about the suffering of the Kashmiri Pandits from the film, after being in power for 7 years? Who will shed tears for the 1,500 Hindus of the Dogra region who were not Pandits? And how many Kashmiri Pandits have you rehabilitated? Why videos spewing venom to Muslims after watching the movies are doing the rounds on social media?”