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• Congress party accuses BJP of exploiting armed forces for politics
• War memorial roll publicly names six dead for first time
KARACHI: India’s opposition Congress party has demanded the resignation of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and stepped up criticism against him for “lying” in parliament about the deaths of Indian soldiers during the May 2025 conflict with Pakistan, according to Indian media.
The criticism comes days after the Indian government on June 26 disclosed the names of six armed forces personnel who died during the military conflict, dubbed “Operation Sindoor” by New Delhi.
The names were included in the Roll of Honour on the National War Memorial website, marking the first official disclosure of military casualties from the period, The Hindu noted.
Subsequently, on Monday, chairperson of the Congress’s Ex-servicemen Department Col. (retd) Rohit Chaudhry and Wing Commander (retd) Anuma Acharya slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government for concealing the deaths of the six personnel, The Hindu reported.
In a press conference, Chaudhry demanded that Singh be removed from his position and that Modi and his party lawmakers apologise for “supporting” the minister’s lies.
Chaudhry accused Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of using “soldiers as props” while seeking votes in the name of the armed forces, the outlet added.
The Congress member questioned why it had taken the government 13 months to make their names public.
In another move against the defence minister, India Today reported that parliament member K.C. Venugopal on Tuesday sought privilege proceedings against Singh for misleading the Lok Sabha about the six Indian soldiers — five from the army and one from the air force.
“This amounts to completely misleading parliament. That is why I have moved a privilege motion against Rajnath Singh before the Speaker of the House,” Congress quoted Venugopal as saying on Wednesday.
On its part, the Indian government has rejected the opposition’s stance, maintaining that the nation had paid tribute to the fallen personnel at the “earliest opportunity”, The Hindu said.
India Today also noted that the defence ministry rejected what it called “misleading social media claims” that Singh had said no Indian soldier was killed during the conflict.
The outlet quoted the ministry as contending that Singh’s remarks were “specifically meant to counter a widely circulated false narrative at the time that Indian Air Force pilots had been killed during Operation Sindoor”.
Published in Dawn, July 2nd, 2026
