'Instead of helping people, Cong was busy in doing politics on Ukraine crisis'

New Delhi, March 9 (IANS) Union Minister and senior BJP leader Piyush Goyal on Wednesday criticised the Congress and other political parties for politicising the Ukraine-Russia war.

Addressing a press conference at party headquarters here along with Union Minister Anurag Thakur, Goyal said: "When Prime Minister Narendra Modi was working day and night to safely evacuate Indian citizens, Congress and other political parties were busy in doing cheap politics and spreading false propaganda."

He alleged that the opposition parties were misleading Indian citizens stranded in Ukraine at the time of crisis instead of helping them.

"Instead of consoling and helping people Congress and its leaders were spreading misinformation and politicising the crisis. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was sharing reports quoting Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan. Kerala Congress shared an old picture, one chief minister of southern state demanded priority evacuation of students from his state. Government has not discriminated between students in the process and evacuated each citizen," Goyal said.

Sharing details of 'Operation Ganga' to evacuate Indian citizens from Ukraine, Goyal said: "India evacuated all its citizens when many countries were not able to do so. India also evacuated citizens of Pakistan and Bangladesh."

"Only India has done everything for the evacuation. The Prime Minister of the country spoke to the Presidents of Ukraine and Russia, and also sent the union ministers as special envoy for safe evacuation of citizens. Besides, our embassies also took full care and made arrangements on the ground," he said.

Calling India's efforts unparalleled, Goyal pointed out that Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself monitored the whole evacuation process.

"The Prime Minister chaired eight high-level meetings and directed to ensure safe evacuation of each citizen. He talked to world leaders 11 times including Russian and Ukrainian presidents. The last batch of students evacuated from Sumy and will reach India soon," Goyal said.

He further said that 2,000 teams of BJP workers reached out to the families of 18,500 students.