Arun Jaitley said that for instance, let's assume that there wouldn't have been elections in India, or Pulwama incident also wouldn't have happened, even then also, armed forces would have taken such an action against the terrorists because air strike were not a retaliatory action to the Pulwama incident.
Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in an exclusive interview to Editor-in-Chief of Zee News, Sudhir Chaudhary, said that the Balakot air strike and surgical strike were both the turning point for India. The Union Finance Minister said earlier, "we used to think and believe that the Line of Control was a big thing, even we have said the same that at the time of the Kargil war, we won it but by being on our side of the LoC and did not cross it, because the conditions were such at that time."
"But with the changing times, they (terrorists or infiltrators) have been crossing the LoC, entering India to kill our people ... and our security and intelligence agencies are defending the people."
"We would nab them 99 out of 100 times but even if a single terror attack happens then it's a success for the terrorists and Pulwama was one such incident ... so I believe that to take the security doctrine to a new page, air strike is a turning point for India," the Union Minister added.
"If you want to win the match, then you have to play at the front foot and not from the backfoot. So we will now attack the terrorism from the point of its origin," Arun Jaitley said.
Speaking on how a section of political fraternity in Indian reacted after the Balakot air strike, Arun Jaitley said, "some political parties and leaders who should have spoken in one voice and stand united with the national narrative played in the hands of Pakistan and spoke the same language what they were speaking like asking for the proofs of the air strike."
"Can we expect the Pakistani army to accept that Indian air force came and targeted terror camps in their territory but they acted as fool or if Pakistan would have accepted in front of the international community that India carried out air strike to target terror camps in Balakot, then wouldn't this have exposed them that terror camps were actually perpetrating on their soil," Arun Jaitley added.
"Some political leaders, parties and a section of media who are against us intentionally or unintentionally became a handle for Pakistan to speak their narrative," he said.
Will Balakot benefit BJP in the elections
Arun Jaitley said, "for instance, let's assume that there wouldn't have been elections in India, or Pulwama incident also wouldn't have happened, even then also, armed forces would have taken such an action against the terrorists because air strike was not a retaliatory action to the Pulwama incident, it was a pre-emptive action to destroy terror camps based on intelligence inputs that several terror attacks were being planned by the terrorists in the next couple of months to target India."
"Therefore, we couldn't have waited for them to attack us first and then take action," he mentioned.
The Finance Minister further added that there was no election or Pulwama kind of incident at the time of surgical strike, but our armed forces conducted surgical strike because there was intelligence information that terror camps were existing across the LoC, so you went their and busted them.
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 "Finance Minister Arun Jaitley")
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