July 30, 2025
Rajya Sabha MP Mamata Thakur’s speech during the Special Discussion on Operation Sindoor
*“Mr. Vice-Chairman Sir. I will speak in Bengali because I am a Bengali and I take pride in that. I thank the hon. Deputy Chairman and I also thank my party, the Trinamool Congress, and our party’s Rajya Sabha leader, Shri Derek O’Brien, for allowing me to speak on this important and painful matter in the Parliament. Sir, from May 7th to May 10th, the Indian Army carried out an operation to destroy Jaish-e-Mohammed camps in the Pakistanoccupied area. I salute the Indian Army, Army, BSF, and CRPF for this. But Operation Sindoor of our great country was a mysterious military operation. Why mysterious? Because if we look back a few days, on April 22nd d in Pahalgam, four extremists came, asked about religion, and killed 26 innocent Indians and then walked back to Pakistan without being caught – just as the perpetrators of the February 14, 2019 Pulwama attack have still not been caught or killed. Similarly on April 22nd also the perpetrators escaped after the attack without being caught or killed.” “From this, it appears to me that there is no other Home Minister in the world so irresponsible as ours. After the April 22nd Pahalgam attack, we all Indians united to demand the destruction of Pakistan, the motherland of terrorists. After the incident, when the ruling party and opposition parties all came together to attack Pakistan, the Central Government mysteriously remained silent for 15 days. Then came the long-awaited May 7th operation, but it ended mysteriously within three days. I do not know what damage was caused to Pakistan. I myself had gone to Kashmir – to Poonch, Rajouri, all border posts – with a delegation of the Trinamool Congress under the guidance of our leader Mamata Banerjee. On our way, our plane crashed, and we were a little afraid that we could have died. But after surviving the accident and reaching Rajouri, Jammu border, we saw the suffering of innocent Indians. The attacks were so tragic that I still cannot sleep at night thinking about them. We saw frightened elderly people running to secure small children in safe places. The houses where children were kept safe were hit by Pakistani mortars shell that blew off the roofs. An elderly madrasa teacher who was trying to protect the children was killed. But the media called that teacher an extremist. The man who sacrificed his life to protect innocent children was labeled an extremist because he was a Muslim. We did not get to know what damage Operation Sindoor caused to Pakistan because it was done so mysteriously. When 1.4 billion Indians wanted to burn Pakistan for the blood of 26 innocent people, why did Indian soldiers agree to a ceasefire on the orders of US President Trump? Are we slaves of America? This decision has tarnished India’s dignity and hurt the pride of great Indians. We must remember the 1971 India-Pakistan war when then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the Iron Lady, warned US President Richard Nixon looking into his eyes, and India split Pakistan into two parts and sent 93,000 Pakistani soldiers home with ropes tied around their necks. At that time, the whole world bowed its head to India, showing respect. But today, we all see how America is strangling our expatriate Indians, tied in chains and sending them back to India! How Pakistan supports injustice, and later the Indian Government shows its subservience!” “Declaring oneself a world leader does not make one a world leader. Although the option of Sindoor remains inside the body, the ceasefire there was not successful. Later, the Indian Government shackled its slave Indians and sent them home. How can India proclaim itself a world leader? The motherland India is crying because of such politics. I ask of the BJP: Do you have no shame? Stop this dirty politics now. The honor of motherland has been tarnished. Stop politicizing the sacrifice of our soldiers. Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, when they visit Thakur Bari in West Bengal, they bow their heads before goddess Veena Pani for votes, they say they will give citizenship to Matua and Bengali Hindus there, but in the BJP ruled states in India, people are being made naked and checked if they are Hindu or Muslim. I saw such case in Gurgaon yesterday.” In BJP-ruled areas, Matua and people from East Bengal, those who have voter cards, Aadhaar cards, and PAN cards, are being taken to the Sundarbans…”
