True or false: Were surgical strikes carried out under the UPA

New Delhi, May 08: In response to BJP on surgical strikes, the Congress recently put out a list on the number of times similar strikes were conducted during its regime.

However the Ministry of Defence has now said that it has no record of surgical strikes being conducted before 2016.

The MoD was replying to an RTI query by a Jammu based activist, Rohit Chaudhary. He had asked if there were any strikes conducted between 2004 and 2014. In response, the ministry said that it had record of only one surgical strike conducted in September 2016. This was conducted 11 days after the Uri attack.

The Congress had said that during its regime, six surgical strikes were carried out. However the BJP's General V K Singh said, "Congress has a habit of lying. Will you please let me know which surgical strikes are you attributing to during my tenure as COAS? Am sure you must have hired some Coupta to invent another story."

The Congress said that during its tenure six surgical strikes were carried out, but it chose not to publicise it. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that the strikes were conducted not as a vote garnering exercise, but as strategic deterrence.