NEW DELHI: Amid the ongoing political slugfest between the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party after Rahul Gandhi questioned the government over Operation Sindoor, Union minister Kiren Rijiju on Monday took a veiled jab at the grand old party and its top brass with a poetic reference from Ramdhari Singh Dinkar’s Rashmirathi.In a social media post on X, Rijiju quoted Rashmirathi and said, “Jab naash manuj par aata hai, pehle vivek mar jata hai” (When doom descends upon a man, his reason is the first to perish)“A famous line from a poem by Ramdhari Singh Dinkar. It means that when a person faces a state of destruction, their reason is already destroyed,” he added.Meanwhile, in response, Congress leader Pawan Khera hit back, questioning Rijiju’s intentions behind the cryptic post.“Why are you sending a message to your own boss through Twitter, brother?” Khera replied to Rijiju’s post.This comes after Rahul questioned external affairs minister S Jaishankar over his remarks on Operation Sindoor, asking how many Indian aircraft were lost during the operation.Quoting a Jaishankar video, Rahul wrote, “Informing Pakistan at the start of our attack was a crime. EAM has publicly admitted that the Government of India did it.”“Who authorised it? How many aircraft did our Air Force lose as a result?” he asked.“EAM Jaishankar’s silence isn’t just telling — it’s damning. So I’ll ask again: How many Indian aircraft did we lose because Pakistan knew?” Gandhi posted on X, while resharing an earlier post of his own.“This wasn’t a lapse. It was a crime. And the nation deserves the truth,” he added.On May 17, Rahul had shared an undated video of Jaishankar, in which the minister is heard saying that “India had warned Pakistan before launching strikes” on terror infrastructure.Following Rahul’s remarks, the BJP slammed the Congress leader, calling his statements “sinister.”“Rahul Gandhi’s daftness is not merely incidental — it is sinister. He is speaking the language of Pakistan,” BJP’s Amit Malviya said in a post on X.The ministry of external affairs refuted Rahul’s claim, calling it a “misrepresentation of facts.”The MEA clarified that the government had warned Pakistan during the “early phase after Operation Sindoor’s commencement,” not before it began. It noted that Jaishankar had said, “We had warned Pakistan at the start, which is clearly the early phase after Op Sindoor’s commencement.”“This is being falsely represented as a warning issued before the commencement. This utter misrepresentation of facts is being called out,” the ministry added.Operation Sindoor was launched on May 7, targeting terror bases in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in retaliation for the deadly Pahalgam terror attack on April 22.