NEW DELHI – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent claim that he preferred bad weather conditions to carry out cross border Balakot airstrikes in order to hide Indian warplanes from Pakistan’s radars has caused embarrassment to the Indian political and military leadership.
In an interview with a mainstream Indian channel, Narendra Modi came up with his own ‘cloud theory’ and said that he used his ‘raw wisdom’ to dispel the doubts of defence experts after they suggested to alter the date for the mission due to bad weather.
Modi said that he gave the Indian Air Force (IAF) the green signal to proceed with airstrike on a target in Pakistan’s Balakot area on February 26, despite bad weather because “the clouds could actually help our planes escape the radars”.
https://twitter.com/Bhayankur/status/1127272153039216641
PM Modi said that “The weather suddenly turned bad, there were clouds… heavy rain. There was a doubt about whether we can go in the clouds. During a review (of the Balakot plan), by and large the opinion of experts was – what if we change the date. I had two issues in mind. One was secrecy… second, I said I am not someone who knows the science. I said there is so much cloud and rain. There is a benefit. I have a raw vision, the clouds can benefit us too. We can escape the radar. Everyone was confused. Ultimately I said there are clouds… let’s proceed.”
Though the Twitter accounts of the BJP’s India and Gujarat units shared the clip of the ‘News Nation’ interview were deleted soon after.
It is pertinent to mention here that Modi’s observation and ‘cloud theory’ has no scientific reasons as Radar technology uses radio waves to detect objects so the clouds over Balakot region would not have given IAF any advantage.
Indian PM Modi also faced nonstop trolling for coming up with an extraordinary cloud science to save IAF warplanes from Pakistan’s radars.
Member of Indian Communist Party, Sitaram Yechury criticised Modi for his irresponsible statement.
https://twitter.com/SitaramYechury/status/1127267389190463488
https://twitter.com/SitaramYechury/status/1127274703838564352
Moreover, the Indian public also targetted Modi for his ‘cloud science’ and social media met with jokes, ridiculing the BJP and Modi for inventing his own science.
https://twitter.com/AdityaMenon22/status/1127257275754631169
https://twitter.com/Joydas/status/1127290362345574400
https://twitter.com/Ghair_Kanooni/status/1127273068122869761
Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have doggedly used the Balakot air strikes in the campaign for the general elections and created war hysteria by claiming that that the Balakot strike was resulted in at least 300 JeM terrorists, trainers and senior commanders, followed by the JeM claim of the Pulwama terror attack, which killed 40 Indian paramilitary troops.
Indian authorities faced worldwide shame after Pakistan exposed baseless Indian claims and revealed that the bombs only hit a few trees near it. International journalists and experts have also refuted India’s claims.
