New Delhi, July 29 : What was meant to be a moment of reckoning for the government turned into a political boomerang for the Congress on Tuesday evening. As the Lok Sabha took up the debate on Operation Sindoor, Prime Minister Narendra Modi turned defence into offence'and then some.

Far from being cornered, PM Modi used his reply to dismantle the Congress's moral high ground, invoking both historical baggage and present-day fractures within the grand old party. In a speech packed with both political memory and strategic sarcasm, he hit out not just at past Congress governments but at the party's current internal turmoil.

Without naming any leader, the Prime Minister made thinly veiled jabs at Congress MPs like Shashi Tharoor, Manish Tewari, and Amar Singh ' senior leaders who had played key roles in India's global outreach post-Operation Sindoor, but who were conspicuously benched during the parliamentary debate.

"Some aren't allowed to speak in Parliament... some object even if you praise India,' PM Modi remarked ' a not-so-subtle nod to the rift between the Congress high command and leaders like Tharoor, whose public praise for the government's handling of the situation has sparked internal backlash.

Interestingly, while the Congress chose not to include Tharoor in its delegation for international outreach, the BJP-led Centre had no such reservations, tapping him to lead missions to the US and other countries. The move didn't just raise eyebrows ' it deepened the Congress's internal discomfort over his increasingly centrist, country-first posture.

Tharoor, once seen as the party's global face, has maintained a diplomatic silence ' quite literally. Though speculation was rife about whether he would speak in the Operation Sindoor debate, he didn't.

Meanwhile, Manish Tewari, another sidelined Congress voice in the Operation Sindoor outreach, let his feelings show ' cryptically ' on X.

"Hai preet jahaan ki reet sada, main geet wahaan ke gaata hoon'"

When asked to clarify the message, Tewari simply said, 'If you don't understand my silence, you will never understand my words.'

These undercurrents were unmistakably picked up by PM Modi, who seized the moment to highlight Congress's internal contradictions ' a party, he implied, that couldn't even stand by its own members when they spoke up for India.

/IANS