Modi politicising bravery of soldiers: Congress

New Delhi, March 3 (IANS) The Congress on Saturday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of politicising the bravery and martyrdom of soldiers, saying he was resorting to credit-seeking for the valour of armed forces as a last resort before the Lok Sabha elections.

In a statement, party leader Randeep Singh Surjewala referred to Modi's speech at an event in Delhi and said it was "a monologue by a narcissistic Prime Minister sans any sense of accountability".

"The Prime Minister is obsessed with one word -- 'Modi'. He forgets that India is a thriving democracy of 132 crore people with a multitude of opinions and not an oligarchy of BJP-RSS," he said.

Surjewala asked when will Modi take "decisive action" against Pakistan-sponsored terror.

"Compromising national security and gross intelligence failure are the characteristic style of a non-functioning Modi government," he said.

Surjewala said that in the last 56 months, 498 soldiers and officers have been martyred in Jammu and Kashmir and 55 brave soldiers laid down their lives last month owing to the menace of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism.

"Pakistan has violated the LoC and International Border 5,665 times in last 56 months. The only policy to fight Pakistan-sponsored terrorism of Narendra Modi is big speeches in public rallies and on television.

"Tragically, Modi has blatantly politicised the bravery and martyrdom of India's soldiers as a political pamphlet. It seems that having failed on every front, shameless credit-seeking for the valour of armed forces is the last resort of PM Modi in the 2019-elections," Surjewala said.

Modi, in his speech, made a strong attack on the Congress and said the results of air strikes on Pakistan "would have been different" had Rafale fighter jets been procured earlier, and accused the opposition party of first worrying about "self-interest" and later doing politics over it.

Modi said that it was a changed India and blood of every soldier was precious and alleged that earlier no action was perhaps taken despite people being killed and soldiers martyred.

Targeting his opponents, he said that they should take care of country's security interests while targeting the government and that in their quest to oppose him, terrorists like Hafiz Saeed and Masood Azhar should not get support or strengthened.

He said farmers and soldiers were the biggest victims of the culture of "doles and deals" and alleged that Congress rule had been marked by defence scams from "jeeps to weapons, submarines, helicopters due to which the defence sector suffered".