Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, has once again targeted External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar. Doubling down on his previous verbal attack about how it was a “crime” to inform Pakistan “at the start of our attack,” in reference to the May 7 Operation Sindoor, the Congress leader continued his scathing remarks against the EAM on Monday morning.

“EAM Jaishankar’s silence isn’t just telling — it’s damning,” he wrote on X. Reiterating his previous question about wanting to know the number of aircraft IAF had lost in the process, he added, “So I’ll ask again: How many Indian aircraft did we lose because Pakistan knew?”

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Rahul Gandhi continues to accuse S Jaishankar in scathing SNS attacks

The tweet came as a follow-up to his two-day-old post. And so, he went on to severely accuse Jaishankar for supposedly disclosing details of Operation Sindoor before its launch, saying, “This wasn’t a lapse. It was a crime. And the nation deserves the truth.”

Pulling the EAM’s admission out of context, Gandhi argued that the Govt of India had slipped a prior warning to Pakistan about its military strikes on Pakistan-based terror sites. In his previous X rant, Gandhi claimed that India’s foreign minister had “publicly admitted” to the Indian Government “informing Pakistan at the start of our attack.” He further posed questions about who authorised such a move and how many aircraft had been lost as a direct consequence of it.

Subsequent response amid Rahul Gandhi-Jaishankar tussle, how it began

Despite the Congress leader’s claims of Jaishankar’s supposed “silence” on the matter, the Ministry of External Affairs attempted to counter the accusation by calling it a “misrepresentation of facts.” On top of that, the quote the opposition politician was pointing to was all about India contacting Pakistan only after the initial stages of Operation Sindoor had destroyed several key terror-based sites.

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Here’s what Rahul Gandhi had ended up “misrepresenting”: Earlier on Thursday, S Jaishankar said, “at the start of the operation, we had sent a message to Pakistan saying we are striking at terrorists’ infrastructure. We are not striking at the military. So the military has an option of standing out and not interfering in this process. They chose not to take that good advice.”

By “sending a message to Pakistan,” the minister of external affairs alluded to Director General of Military Operation Lt General Rajiv Ghai’s call to his Pakistani counterpart Major General Kashif Abdullah in the aftermath of nine Pak-based terror infrastructures being hit in the May 7 precision strikes.

ANI quoted the MEA’s External Publicity Division’s explanation of the conflicted development: “EAM Dr S. Jaishankar had stated that we had warned Pakistan at the start, which is clearly the early phase after Operation Sindoor’s commencement. This is being falsely represented as being before the commencement.”

The Press Information Bureau’s (PIB) Fact-Check unit also denied any such prior warning being sent out to Pakistan, noting that Jaishankar’s statement had been misquoted.