Piyush Goyal lauds govt for Ukraine evacuation, accuses Cong. of spreading ‘misinformation’

and said that the Indian government had issues advisories in time suggesting Indian students to leave Ukraine. “People in this country have this faith that in any crisis situation, Modi ji will get us out of the Problem. 20,000 Indians, most of them students who are stuck in Ukraine, within three weeks we have brought them back to India and it is a matter of pride,” Goyal said. He said Prime Minister Modi held several meetings and directed that no Indian should be left behind. He also said that the PM talked to world leaders 11 times for evacuation efforts. He said the last batch of Indian students have left the war zone and are proceeding towards the border. “The way Modi ji led this mission, sent ministers as envoys, there is no parallel to it. No other country has made such serious efforts to evacuate their citizens. China could only evacuate a few people, US gave an advisory that you leave or we are not responsible,” he said. He said India evacuated some students from Pakistan and Bangladesh as well. “It is a matter of pride that the importance of the tri-colour was seen in the warzone. Many students said they would leave with the Indian flag, some students from other countries also used the Indian flag to get out,” he said. Slamming Congress, he accused the party of spreading ‘misinformation’. “When a crisis arises in a family, whatever differences might be there, the whole family comes together. During this crisis, we saw some Congress leaders were spreading misinformation,” he alleged. “We saw the work done by Modi ji on one hand, the whole government was working on it. But some Congress leaders and some state governments of Opposition parties politicized the situation”. “It is sad that Congress could have stood with the government, instead of that Kerala Congress used a picture on Twitter of Operation Rahat and said it was done by UPA. Congress shared the video of a student from Kashmir saying he is not being rescued, while he had been rescued already,” he said. He said India required support of both Russia and Ukraine for the evacuation and alleged that “some prominent leaders of Congress” were giving statements against – Russia, which could have affected the evacuation efforts. Goyal also said that the Indian government issued advisory to students suggesting they should leave Ukraine in time, and alleged that some universities misled the students into staying back. “We issued the first advisory on February 15. We issued two advisories before the war started and suggested that the students should return. There was an air bubble at that time, there was only one flight a week, we made it two flights a day,” Goyal said. “Unfortunately a lot of students did not take the advisories seriously, and universities also misled them. The students were very emotional, every possible attempt was made to get them out but some universities told students that such a situation keeps arising and misled them,” he added.