Rahul Gandhi asks Modi to clarify Trump’s claim of ‘five jets shot down’ in Op Sindoor

Gandhi, who serves as the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, said the nation deserved to know the facts.

“Modi ji, what is the truth about the five jets? The country has the right to know!” Gandhi wrote on X, sharing a video in which Trump makes the claim.

During a dinner hosted for Republican senators at the White House on Friday, Trump said, “You had India, Pakistan, that was going — in fact, planes were being shot out of the air… four or five. But I think five jets were shot down. Actually, that was getting worse and worse, wasn’t it?”

Trump did not clarify which side lost the jets or whether the figure referred to combined losses. He also reiterated that there would be no trade deals with India or Pakistan if the conflict escalated.

“That was looking like it was going to go. These are two serious nuclear countries, and they were hitting each other. But India and Pakistan were going at it, and they were back and forth, and it was getting bigger and bigger. And we got it solved through trade,” Trump said.

Congress general secretary in charge of communications Jairam Ramesh hit out at the Prime Minister, saying the “Trump missile gets fired” for the 24th time, just two days before the Monsoon Session of Parliament.

“The Prime Minister, who has had years of friendship and huglomacy with President Trump going back to ‘Howdy Modi’ in September 2019 and ‘Namaste Trump’ in February 2020, must now make a clear and categorical statement in Parliament on what President Trump has been asserting repeatedly for the past 70 days,” Ramesh said.

The Congress party has been mounting pressure on PM Modi to respond to Trump’s ceasefire claims in both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha during the Monsoon Session beginning July 21.

Since May 10, when Trump stated that India and Pakistan had agreed to a full and immediate ceasefire following a long night of talks mediated by the US, he has reiterated multiple times that Washington helped defuse the situation.

However, India has consistently maintained that the understanding on cessation of hostilities was reached after direct talks between the Directors General of Military Operations (DGMOs) of both countries, following a request from Pakistan.

Pakistan has claimed it downed three Rafale jets during the four-day military confrontation, but has not provided any proof to back the assertion.

India’s Chief of Defence Staff, General Anil Chauhan, acknowledged that some fighter jets were lost during the hostilities, but rejected Pakistan’s claim of shooting down Rafales as “absolutely incorrect.” He added that the number of losses was less important than the outcome of the operation.

Dassault Aviation CEO Eric Trappier, whose firm manufactures the Rafale jets, also dismissed Pakistan’s claims as “inaccurate.”

Last month, during a nearly 35-minute phone conversation with Trump, PM Modi is said to have firmly stated that India does not and will never accept third-party mediation, and that the ceasefire discussions between the militaries were initiated at Pakistan’s request.

India had launched Operation Sindoor on May 7, targeting terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in retaliation for the Pahalgam attack that killed 26 civilians, most of them tourists.