TMC slams PM Modi’s absence from the all-party meet
The Statesman | 26 April 2025
The Trinamul Congress leaders on Friday slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his calculated silence on the Pahalgam attack that killed 26 people. The party slammed him for chasing votes while dodging crucial meetings on national security, treating elections as more urgent than Indian lives.
An all-party meeting was convened by the Centre on Thursday in the wake of the killings that shook the nation. PM Modi was a no-show. Instead, he was in Bihar, pitching for votes. “The dead got five minutes. The ballot got the rest,” the party posted on X, calling out Modi’s 48-hour silence followed by a fleeting mention of the killings in a 28-minute campaign speech in Bihar. The party also shared a video of senior party leader Kunal Ghosh condemning how PM did “politics over dead bodies.”
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While political leaders across party lines assembled to discuss national security, PM Modi skipped the meet — triggering a wave of condemnation from TMC top brass. Rajya Sabha MP Sagarika Ghose said the Prime Minister’s refusal to engage with the Opposition in a moment of national crisis was “strange.”
“When the country is numbed & grieving over a major terror attack in #Pahalgam, when opposition parties have given their full support to the Government of India for the actions it wishes to take, for @narendramodi to stay away from the All Party Meeting and instead attend a campaign rally in Bihar within 48 hours of Pahalgam is strange. In an hour of grave crisis, surely the Prime Minister must be the one taking the opposition into confidence,” she posted on X.
On Friday, Krishnanagar MP Mahua Moitra blasted at the Prime Minister’s decision to skip the all-party meeting. “How does PM @narendramodi have gall to skip All Party meeting on Pahalgam & instead go electioneering in Bihar? To tell us how only voting @BJP4India can protect our borders? Shameless.”
Trinamul Rajya Sabha MP Saket Gokhale also invoked the Pulwama precedent — where PM Modi continued shooting a nature show in Uttarakhand hours after the attack — to show how the PM uses tragedy as a campaign backdrop.
“Just days ago, 26 innocent Indians were murdered by terrorists. And all political parties came together last evening to support the Union Govt in responding to the attack. The LoPs from BOTH Houses of Parliament were present. But Modi didn’t feel that 26 Indian lives are important. Because, for the shameless man Modi, every death (in uniform or of a civilian) is merely an opportunity to ask for votes & to campaign for elections,” he wrote on X.
Sharing visuals of the family members of the victims demanding justice, Trinamul leaders said grief-stricken kin were demanding answers but finding none. Taking to X, TMC MLA Bratya Basu posted: “Don’t ask us for votes if you can’t protect us” – That’s what grieving families are telling @BJP4India leaders. No propaganda can silence the fury of those who lost loved ones due to the Modi Govt.’s indifference and apathy.”
Raising concerns over lapse of security, TMC MLA Dr Shashi Panja wrote on X: “The Modi Govt. has failed on every front: Ignored prior intelligence; No security personnel deployed; PM Modi skipped all-party meeting. Now, @BJP4India is being confronted with tough questions by the families who lost their loved ones.”