MUMBAI: On Wednesday, Union Home Minister and senior BJP leader Rajnath accused the Congress of politicizing the anti-terror operation by the Indian Air Force. He hit out at Rahul Gandhi for using "foul language" against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Claiming the BJP would get a clear mandate in the Lok Sabha elections, Mr. Singh said he has no doubt in his mind that the NDA allies will retain power with a three-fourths majority.

Rajnath Singh said the Congress is politicizing the Balakot air strikes and dismissed its demand of proof of casualties in the operation as "uncalled for". On 26 February, the IAF had struck a Jaish-e-Mohammad terror training camp in Pakistan in response to the Pulwama attack in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed.

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"Should our forces have stopped there to count the dead bodies? Brave jawans do not count the dead bodies, they keep marching ahead... eagles count bodies," he said. "Had there been 1, 2, 3 or 4 casualties, then we could have given a figure, but how can we tell (the exact casualties) when this figure was so high?" he alleged.

"I head the intelligence agencies. I would like to say we carried out the air strikes on the basis of credible and actionable inputs, and without violating Pakistan's sovereignty," he further said. He addressed two election rallies in neighboring Palghar district in support of Shiv Sena candidates from Thane and Palghar Lok Sabha constituencies. Slamming the opposition for pointing fingers at electronic voting machines, he said, "The (voting) trend in the first phase of elections suggested the NDA would get a two-thirds majority. Soon the opposition launched an attack on EMVs.

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