As India and the world waited with bated breath, in the wee hours of Saturday, Chandrayaan-2’s landing module had gone silent after Vikram the lander, could not establish communication with the control centre in Bengaluru, when it was merely 2.1 KMs from the landing surface of the moon.
While NASA, global media, scientists across the globe and almost all the proud citizens of India hailed ISRO for its exemplary efforts in accomplishing almost 90 to 95 per cent of the Chandrayaan-2 mission, there are few in the opposition squad who could not resist playing politics over the same.
Congress leader and Chhattisgarh Food and Civil Supplies Minister Amarjeet Bhagat in a shocking statement on Monday blamed PM Modi over the probably technical glitch in the Vikram lander. On being questioned about 100 days of Modi government, Congress leader Amarjeet Bhagat allegedly pinned the blame on PM Modi calling the mission a “failure”.
“Abhi tak to Modi ji kewal doosre ke kiye mein feeta kaat’te they, udghaatan karte they, waahwaahi lete they. Pehli baar Chandrayaan-2 launch karne gaye aur woh bhi fail ho gaya (until now Modi ji used to take credit for other people’s works. Now when he went to launch Chandrayaan-2, that also failed),” said the Congress minister.
Ironically, while on one hand, Congress Minister is heard mocking the spirit of ISRO scientists, on the other hand, Congress bigwigs had taken to Twitter to express their solidarity with ISRO after it was learned that contact with the Vikram lander was lost by mission control. However, this statement coming from a Congress leader is not surprising.
The way it is almost customary for Congress to claim credit for every achievement that the citizens of this country strive hard to achieve, it is almost traditional for it to blame Modi for whatever erroneous happens under the deep blue sky.
Amusingly, the similar had happened in the case of Chandrayaan-2. Even before Chandrayaan-2 entered its orbit around the Earth, the Congress party hailed Jawaharlal Nehru for the glorious achievement of the Indian scientists. The party could not stop itself from throwing salutations to Manmohan Singh for sanctioning the space mission in 2008. In reality, however, the Chandrayaan-2 mission was delayed by the Congress party.
Even when India had announced its anti-satellite missile, the Congress party had claimed credit for it despite the fact that it was their own government which hadn’t given clearance for the project. A former DRDO chief, in fact, credited the Modi government for giving them the go-ahead to build the missile.
Moreover, in a bizarre rant, TMC chief Mamata Banerjee had accused ISRO of launching the moon mission ‘Chandrayaan 2’ to ‘divert attention’ from the economic slowdown.
