Congress Spread Misinformation Over Rescue Mission, Alleges Piyush Goyal

New Delhi, March 9: With one last batch of evacuees to be brought back to India, Union Minister Piyush Goyal has alleged that the Indian students were misled by some of their respective universities about the severity of the threat of war in Ukraine.

The senior BJP leader, in a press conference said that the Indian government had issued its first advisory to leave Ukraine on February 15th. He said that despite issuing repeated advisories, students did not leave Ukraine as their universities did not take the matter seriously and claimed that the threat posed by Russia has been looming over the country since 2014.

"The day the war began, our evacuation efforts began and daily we brought back Indian students. Sometimes 15, sometimes 20 flights," the minister said

He also levelled attack against the Congress party saying that the opposition party played politics on the evacuation situation and termed the government's efforts as a PR stunt. Goyal stated that rather than showing compassion and support, the Congress party and some of its leaders spent their time in false propaganda.

"It pains me that during such a time when the Congress party could have stood with the government, instead from their official social media handle shared a picture of Operation Rahat and claimed that the rescue mission was carried out by UPA," he alleged.

The minister claimed that other than evacuating several Indian students and people, it has also assisted in evacuation of people from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Bengal. Under 'Operation Ganga', the central government has evacuated about 18ooo Indians from Ukraine's neighbouring countries so far and have been brought back by special flights.

Piyush Goyal also slammed DMK led Tamil Nadu government saying that some its state government staff had requested to be flown to the neighbouring countries of Ukraine to assist in the evacuation process and that "priority" may be given to rescue students of Southern India.