Congress leader Ashok Gehlot addresses a party briefing at party office, 24 Akbar Road, in New Delhi on Tuesday.
| Photo Credit: ANI

The Congress on Tuesday (May 13, 2025) claimed the Narendra Modi government had lost “moral authority” after U.S. President Donald Trump announced the ceasefire between India and Pakistan.

Addressing a press conference at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) office, former Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said India lost a “golden opportunity” in teaching Pakistan a lesson for sponsoring terrorism as a state policy.

Mr. Gehlot claimed citizens felt that the Indian armed forces were going strong and could have given a befitting lesson to Pakistan to ensure that it did not harbour terrorists and their camps in future.

“The manner in which the ceasefire was announced, this government has lost the moral authority and moral courage to rule,” Mr. Gehlot said, adding, “This was a golden opportunity for himself, the government and the country but it has been lost by the sudden announcement of a ceasefire”.

The former Rajasthan Chief Minister said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address to the nation on Monday evening was “disappointing” as he did not clarify on Mr. Trump’s claims of mediation.

“What pressure is the government under that the U.S. intervened and claimed mediation,” Mr. Gehlot asked as he posed several questions on why the Prime Minister was not responding to claims of the U.S. President since the U.S. has internationalised the issue.

The Congress veteran reiterated his party’s demand for a Special Session of Parliament to discuss the issue and a PM-chaired all-party meeting, where the government can spell out its thoughts and policy in the aftermath of the Pahalgam attack.

Differing opinion

However, there were differing opinions on the issue of third-party mediation. “Third Party Mediation between India and Pakistan is a reality going back to 1990, call it by whatever name back channelling, brokering, mediating, arbitrating, etc.,” Congress Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari said in a post on X, adding that from 1947 to 1972, India-Pakistan relations “or lack of them whenever they reached a flashpoint were undergirded by UNSC resolutions, 1972-1990 the Shimla Agreement, 1990 onwards Third Party Intervention by whatever nomenclature you are most comfortable with”.

“U.S. President Donald Trump is just stating the facts as they are,” Mr. Tewari added.

However, the Congress’s official position on the issue, articulated by both Mr. Gehlot and communication chief Jairam Ramesh, question the government on the issue of the U.S. role.

Pointing out that External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar had spent maximum time with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and was the first to meet him, Mr. Ramesh, in a post on X, said, “The normally unquiet Minister’s silence on what Mr. Rubio has said on U.S. mediation and on a ‘neutral site’ for India-Pakistan talks is very deafening”.

In a separate post, Mr. Ramesh also asked if the Modi government would conduct a Kargil Review Committee-type exercise to probe the Pahalgam terror attack. “Three days after the Kargil War ended, the Vajpayee government set up the Kargil Review Committee on July 29, 1999. Its report was tabled in Parliament on February 23, 2000, although sections of it have remained classified — as indeed they must,” Mr. Ramesh said, adding, “Will the Modi government now conduct a similar exercise on Pahalgam, notwithstanding the NIA (National Investigation Agency) probe?”