Prithviraj Chavan, a Congress veteran and former chief minister of Maharashtra, has made a startling assertion on India’s military response to the Pahalgam terror incident, known as “Operation Sindoor.”
The air force was “completely grounded” because of the high likelihood of an aircraft being shot down by Pakistan, according to Chavan, who claimed that India was totally beaten on the “very first day” of Operation Sindoor.
We were totally defeated on the first day of Operation Sindoor. Whether people agree with it or not, we were completely destroyed in the 30-minute aerial battle on the 7th. Indian planes were shot down. Not a single aircraft flew, and the Air Force was totally grounded. The air force was completely grounded since there was a good chance that any aircraft that had taken off from Gwalior, Bathinda, or Sirsa would have been shot down by Pakistan, Chavan stated at a news conference in Pune.
He did not stop there, even if his remarks have caused a significant political scandal. There were more contentious remarks to come. He was accused by the BJP of “parroting” Congressman and Lok Sabha Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi’s “views” over India’s four-day military operation against “terror targets” in Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK).
The Indian Army has the largest standing army in the world, but Chavan went one step further and questioned its usefulness. He questioned the necessity of keeping sizable ground forces by using the way the battle was handled.
He asserted that there was “not even a one-kilometer movement of the military” throughout the entire operation. Rather, during the course of two or three days, “only an aerial war and missile warfare” took place.
Pune: Former Maharashtra CM and senior Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan says, "Recently, we saw during Operation Sindoor, there was not even a one-kilometre movement of the military… Whatever happened over two or three days was only an aerial war and missile warfare. In the… pic.twitter.com/9xDCB7gdm2
— ANI (@ANI) December 16, 2025
“We recently witnessed that there was not even a single kilometer of military movement during Operation Sindoor. Whatever transpired over the course of two or three days was limited to missile and aerial warfare. Wars will be waged in the same manner in the future as well. Do we really need to keep an army of 12 lakh men in such a scenario, or can we assign them to other tasks?” He inquired.
The Congress leader emphasized that aerial warfare is the way of the future and asserted that battles will be conducted similarly in the future.
After 26 persons were shot dead in a terror incident in Pahalgam, Jammu & Kashmir, Operation Sindoor was initiated. Chavan brought up allegations that Indian fighter jets had been shot down, but India has formally denied the stories that had surfaced after a defense attaché insisted that the earlier comments were “taken out of context.”
The military claims that employing cutting-edge equipment like Rafale jets, SCALP missiles, and HAMMER bombs, over 100 terrorists were killed during the operation.
