New Delhi, Jun 28: The Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday engaged in a war of words over videos of surgical strikes that were broadcast on several news channels last night. While the Congress accused the BJP of playing politics over jawans' sacrifices, the ruling party asked why the government shouldn't release such videos.

"The ruling party will have to remember that they cannot make the sacrifice of the Army a tool to garner votes for them. It is the soldiers who sacrificed their lives and it is Modi ji who was glorified," Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said on surgical strikes videos. He added that wherever Modi government starts failing they misuse the valour of the Army for their political benefit.

Senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy, however, hit back at the Congress and said it wants to stop us from releasing surgical strikes videos because no such operation was carried out during their regimes. "Just because they (Congress) can't produce such videos, because there's none, we shouldn't do it too? How's this exploiting people's sentiments in BJP's favour? If you did it, why did you hide it? It's just like the old saying 'grapes are sour'," Swamy said.

Videos of surgical strikes that emerged yesterday showed how the Indian Army jawans killed terrorists in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and destroyed bunkers. “The videos are real. I can confirm that,” Lt General D S Hooda (retd), former Northern Army Commander who was directly in-charge of the surgical strikes told a leading daily.

Nearly 10 days after militants attacked the Army base camp in Uri that left 18 jawans dead on September 18, 2016, India conducted surgical strikes across the Line of Control (LoC) in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and destroyed terrorist launch pads and killed many terrorists.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 28, 2018 10:46 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).