New Delhi, May 13, 2025
Former Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Tuesday voiced the Congress party’s concerns over the sudden understanding on ceasefire announced during Operation Sindoor and described US President Donald Trump’s suggestion to help on Kashmir as ‘dangerous’.
The Congress stalwart questioned the government on why it was allowing Donald Trump to come into the picture.
Addressing the media here, Gehlot said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Ministry of External Affairs should elaborate on the role that Trump claimed he played in achieving an understanding on a ceasefire between India and Pakistan.
“I have this complaint against PM Modi that he has not spoken about Trump’s tweets,” he said, referring to the US President’s offer to help on Kashmir.
“The Simla Agreement said that no third nation would come into the picture, but Trump has entered the scene. We don’t know if Trump is in the frame with the consent of the Indian government or not,” he said.
The Congress leader trained his guns on the government for its silence on the compulsion behind suddenly allowing Trump to play a role and listening to what he is saying on Kashmir.
Calling Trump’s offer to help on Kashmir a dangerous development, Gehlot said, “Why aren’t we sharing specific details about the reason and compulsion behind allowing Trump to play a role?”
In a veiled attack on the government for allegedly using the Operation Sindoor for political gains, Gehlot said the armed forces have always kept the nation’s head high, and this has been happening over the decades, including during the era of the Congress government that saw the 1965 and 1971 wars with Pakistan.
Earlier on Saturday, Trump took to social media to announce a US-brokered “immediate ceasefire” between India and Pakistan after four days of New Delhi’s Operation Sindoor.
In another post later, the US President offered to intervene on the Kashmir issue. “I will work with you both to see if, after a thousand years, a solution can be arrived at, concerning Kashmir,” he said in a social media message that has now given ammunition to the Opposition parties in India to target the government.
India launched the four-day-long Operation Sindoor on May 7 to target nine terror hubs in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Pakistan in response to the Pahalgam terror attack in Kashmir, which left 26 dead on April 22.(Agency)
