In response to former US President Donald Trump’s comments labelling India’s economy as “dead,” People’s Democratic Party (PDP) President Mehbooba Mufti has attributed the nation’s economic troubles to excessive defence spending and continued hostility with Pakistan.

“We are spending all our budget on defence It is sucking us dry,” Mufti stated on Wednesday. “The money we are spending on maintaining enmity with Pakistan has weakened our country’s economy. After Operation Sindoor, all we hear is what weapons we bought. When all our money is being spent on this, the economy will definitely go down.”

US President Donald Trump on Thursday unleashed an attack against New Delhi’s ties with Moscow, deriding both nations as “dead economies” and brazenly declaring he “does not care” what India does with Russia. “I don’t care what India does with Russia. They can take their dead economies down together, for all I care,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, just hours after slapping India with sweeping trade penalties.

Mehbooba Mufti also criticised the lack of transparency in the country’s military engagements, referring to Operation Sindoor. “During Operation Sindoor, our chief of defence staff himself said that we were fighting both Pakistan and China. But no one mentioned China’s name in the Parliament.”

Mufti accused the central government of conflating domestic political goals with foreign policy. “Our leadership must realise that our domestic policy can not be our foreign policy. They have made their domestic policy of pleasing people for votes, their foreign policy,” she said.

The PDP leader linked this approach to international criticism. “That’s why Trump, whom we respected so much, has attacked our country the most,” she added.

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Inputs from ANI