When 26/11 happened, Manmohan went into 'silent mode' on Sonia's advice: Anurag Thakur

Bhopal: Union minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Anurag Thakur on Tuesday alleged that during the 26/11 terror attacks on Mumbai, then-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh went into 'silent mode' on the advice of former Congress president Sonia Gandhi and did not respond to the strikes in an effective way.

He said India has now emerged as a country that provides help to other nations which was not the case in the past.

This shows the growing strength of the country, said the Information and Broadcasting Minister while addressing a public rally at Khurai in Sagar district, around 200km from Bhopal, in the impoverished Bundelkhand region ahead of the November 17 assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh.

“When the 26/11 attacks occurred, Manmohan went into silent mode and became 'Mauni Baba'. Sonia Gandhi (then-Congress president) told him not to do anything. Do nothing as terrorists have attacked. Sonia Gandhi sent the then-Chief Minister (of Maharashtra) with a film director to make a film on 26/11,” Thakur alleged.

Ten heavily-armed terrorists from Pakistan attacked Mumbai on November 26, 2008, and created mayhem for three days, killing 166 people, including security personnel and foreign nationals, and injuring several others.

The BJP MP praised the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said he ordered surgical strikes in the country which promotes terrorism, a reference to Pakistan.

Thakur said there was time when the tricolour used to be burnt in Jammu and Kashmir and the flag of Pakistan used to be hoisted in the erstwhile state, but Congress people remained just mute spectators and appeared helpless.

But the Modi government scrapped Articles 370 and 35A (in August 2019) and the tricolour is now hoisted in every lane of Kashmir, stated the BJP leader.

Two lakh incidents of atrocities on women were recorded in the Congress-ruled Rajasthan and 35,000 women were raped and 15,000 of them murdered, but party General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi-Vadra didn't visit the western state, Thakur said.

Gandhi-Vadra gave the slogan of 'Ladki Hoon, Lad Sakti Hoon' (I'm a girl, I can fight), but did not stand up for the women of Rajasthan, he alleged.

Madhya Pradesh will vote in a single phase to elect a new 230-member Assembly and counting will take place on December 3.