Heaping praises on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for "successful" Operation Ganga, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday accused Congress and other Opposition parties of spreading "misinformation and misleading" people instead of helping families of those stranded in Ukraine.
Addressing a joint press conference with his Cabinet colleague Anurag Thakur at the BJP headquarters in New Delhi today, Union Minister Piyush Goyal said India took all the necessary decisions keeping the safety of Indians in Ukraine as a top priority and called the efforts of the Centre 'unparalleled' under which around 18,000 Indian nationals have been evacuated from war-torn Ukraine.
"Our party's workers approached families of 18,500 students who were stranded in Ukraine. They met the family members and sent their grievances to the central government," he said.
"Unfortunately, Congress and other political parties were spreading misinformation and misleading people instead of helping families of those stranded in Ukraine while PM Modi was constantly worried about Indians stuck in Ukraine."
After Russia started its military operation in Ukraine on February 24, India launched 'Operation Ganga' to evacuate its nationals, mainly students from the warzone.
Goyal said that the process of evacuation was not easy but the PM left no stones unturned to bring the Indian students back home. "It is a matter of pride for India to evacuate the Indians safely in just three weeks. Prime Minister Modi held 8 high-level meetings and contacted the higher authorities of foreign countries more than 11 times. He was worried about every Indian stuck in the war zone."
"Many countries floundered in evacuating citizens from Ukraine. India still evacuated its citizens through neighbouring nations and people brought their pets back too. We evacuated citizens from Nepal, Pakistan & Bangladesh as well," said Goyal.
The Union Minister said that the government issued several advisories for Indian citizens to return home but "neither students took advisory seriously nor their universities permitted them to leave Ukraine".
( With inputs from ANI )
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