Politics 2023-04-25 18:35:50

The Satyapal Malik interview with Karan Thapar has had an explosive effect on the political

In an interview that has rocked the political establishment, Satyapal Malik says that the govt's strategy was always to blame Pakistan and reap electoral gain.

"I told him it was our fault, if we had given aircrafts, this would not have happened."

When asked whether we'll ever know the full truth of what happened at Pulwama, Satyapal Malik said that the government is in full possession of the facts, but has a vested interest in keeping them from the public - and using the narrative for gain.

Along with the failure to provide aircrafts for the transport of the jawans, Malik notes that there was a huge intelligence failure as well, given that the explosives had been in the territory without interruption for nearly two weeks.

"Nobody knew, and nobody intercepted...everybody failed."

Another failure was the lack of appropriate sanitation of the roads along which the jawans were travelling - there were multiple unmanned link roads, says Malik, where there ought to have been none.

In an extraordinarily revealing interview with Karan Thapar, Satyapal Malik says that the CRPF had asked for aircrafts ahead of the Pulwama tragedy, and the request was denied by the Union govt.

Outside of the Pulwama tragedy, he speaks about PM Narendra Modi's role in the Kashmir crisis, saying that the prime minister was extremely ill-informed about Kashmir.

On the other hand, he said that the Prime Ministers Office (PMO) keeps a tight hold on internal matters, with even the President Draupadi Murmu disallowed to take appointments without the PMO's approval.

He also said that while he was the governor of Jammu and Kashmir, in a non-titular position given that J&K was under President's rule, he was not informed of the reading down of Article 370.

He said that Narendra Modi has no particular aversion to corruption, and names two separate incidents of corruption brought to the PMO's notice that went unaddressed.

Finally, he said that Rahul Gandhi's disqualification was related to the discomfort he is currently causing the establishment with his hard line of questioning on the Adani front.