BJP president Amit Shah on Saturday said the surgical strikes conducted by the army in Pak-administered Kashmir, last year changed the world’s outlook towards India and showed the country is committed to “self-defence”. Shah was addressing the public meeting at Goa airport  with Congress saying that it is a gross violation of power to hold a meeting at airport, in the presence of Chief Minister, Goa.

The decision to conduct the surgical strike was taken with a political will, he said while addressing the gathering.

 Speaking to a group of people at Goa airport, he said Indian forces are attacked on the border “everyday and terrorists enter our territory”.

“I don’t say it is not happening today. It is happening today also. But when the Uri attack happened, the BJP government led by Narendra Modi took a decision,” he said as he listed the Centre’s achievements in the last three years.

An Army battalion headquarter in Uri was attacked by militants on September 18 last year in which 19 soldiers were killed.

Later that month, the army conducted surgical strike on ‘terror launch pads’ on the other side of LOC.

“We told the world that India is capable of self-defense,” the BJP president said. “Nobody has dared to do this except the USA.”

Since the surgical strike, the world’s outlook towards India has changed, he added

Hours after BJP President Amit Shah addressed a public meeting at the Goa airport complex on Saturday the state Congress termed the move as “gross abuse of power”. Goa Chief Minister, Manohar Parrikar was also present at the public meeting along with other BJP leaders.

All India Congress Committee (AICC) secretary Girish Chodankar said in a statement, “We strongly condemn the act of the BJP holding a meeting at the Goa airport complex which was addressed by their president Amit Shah in the presence of Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar.”

Chodankar said that the BJP did not set the right example of good governance by holding the meeting at the airport complex. He asked that the officials at the Airport Authority of India (AAI) to investigate those who issued clearances for the meeting.

The BJP President, who is on a two-day visit to Goa, received a warm welcome outside the airport where he addressed the party workers.

Replying to a question on lynching, Shah said that “I do not want to compare and undermine the current incidents of lynching…. I am also serious. (But) there have been more lynchings in 2011, 2012, and 2013. Humaare teen saal main jitne lynching hue hain usse zyada hue hain ek ek saal main. Magar kabhi yeh sawaal nahi uttha tha (There have been more incidents of lynching in each of these years than in NDA’s three years.)”

To a question on the “growing apprehension” across the country over the government’s apparent lack of effective action against the perpetrators of lynching, Shah asked, “Do you know of any such incident where arrests have not been made? I do not have any answer to ‘apprehension’…. There is no apprehension anywhere in the country.”

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