Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai, on Sunday, 6 March, slammed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for criticising the Centre's evacuation efforts to bring back Indian students stranded in war-hit Ukraine and called his tweets on the evacuation as "senseless and a bundle of lies.
"Rahul Gandhi's tweet does not make any sense. It's a bundle of lies," he said, adding that people are praising PM Modi for his efforts to evacuate stranded students in Ukraine. He brought pride to the country, and hence everyone is looking up to India, he said, as per news agency ANI.
Rahul Gandhi, meanwhile, has been consistently putting out tweets criticising the Union government over its 'Operation Ganga', which was launched to bring back Indian students stuck in Ukraine amid the Russian invasion in the country. Slamming the government, Gandhi had said, "evacuation is a duty, not a favour".
"Such shameful treatment of compelled students is an insult to the entire country. This bitter truth of #OperationGanga has shown the real face of Modi government," the Congress's Wayanad MP wrote in another tweet. He had also attached a media report along with the tweet that claimed that students were told that those who cleaned the toilets first could leave for India first.
"Instead of questioning Indian students, why doesn't the Modi government question itself? The students trapped in the crisis have shown the truth of the brutality and failure of the government," Gandhi said in another tweet.
Since the launch of special flights under Centre's Operation Ganga on 22 February, over 15,900 Indians have been brought back from Ukraine. On Sunday, 11 special civilian flights brought back almost 2,135 Indians from Ukraine's neighbouring nations. According to the Ministry of Civil Aviation, as many as 13,852 Indians have been airlifted by 66 special civilian flights.
(With inputs from ANI.)
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