Congress MP Jairam Ramesh on Saturday questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s continued silence over former US President Donald Trump’s repeated claims of having stopped a conflict between India and Pakistan, warning that the Opposition will demand a special discussion in the upcoming Monsoon Session of Parliament.
Ramesh, Congress General Secretary in charge of Communications, said Trump has reiterated his assertions multiple times since May, including a new claim that “five fighter jets went down” during the escalation, and insisted that only PM Modi—not any other minister—should address the issue in Parliament.
“Since May 10, Donald Trump has said two things 24 times—first, that he stopped a war between India and Pakistan, and second, that if India and Pakistan wanted trade with the US, the war had to stop. Now he says five jets were shot down. The PM must break his silence,” Ramesh told ANI.
He added, “The Congress and the entire Opposition will raise this matter in Parliament starting July 21. We don’t want a substitute batsman. Only the Prime Minister must answer.”
Commenting on the all-party meeting held ahead of the Monsoon session, Ramesh dismissed it as a “mere formality” and said it lacked meaningful outcomes. “Rajnath Singh will come, smile, greet everyone, and we’ll all speak for two hours. And then, nothing happens. Every session begins like this. The PM will speak half an hour before Parliament begins and call for cooperation, and then they’ll do whatever they want,” he said.
He also called for an extended debate in Parliament on critical national issues, including the recent Pahalgam terror attack, Trump’s remarks, Operation Sindoor, and China’s increasing assertiveness.
Trump, in his latest comments, claimed to have de-escalated tensions between India and Pakistan through a trade negotiation strategy. “India and Pakistan were going back and forth. It was getting bigger and bigger. We got it solved through trade. We told them we wouldn’t make a trade deal while they were throwing around weapons,” Trump said.
The former US President has repeatedly claimed that his administration averted a full-blown conflict between the two nuclear-armed neighbours—a claim the Indian government has so far neither confirmed nor denied.