External Affairs Minister (EAM) Dr S Jaishankar  took a slightly veiled dig at the Opposition and quipped that ‘the country knows what it is like to have a strong leader and what it is not.’ Addressing a gathering in Gujarat’s Vadodara, the EAM said, “We’re always heading for elections…As a minister and a member of the world’s largest political party, we’re confident about ourselves. This country has seen what it is to have a strong national leader with a vision and what it is not and young people understand this difference.”

EAM Dr S Jaishankar further hailed PM Modi while citing examples of events where his strong leadership made a difference. He stressed that the movement of troops in the middle of the Covid lockdown was only possible because of PM Modi when the Chinese created a commotion at the LAC. “Some leaders have belief, they know how to stand their ground… When the Chinese came to LAC, we were in the middle of COVID. We moved thousands of troops in the middle of lockdown. How tough it was to move people during the lockdown, but it took a Prime Minister like that,” he said.

Jaishankar also reminisced that during ‘Operation Ganga’ in Ukraine, PM Modi kept monitoring the situation all the time, ‘which has an impact on the system.’ “During op Ganga in Ukraine, he (PM Modi) kept monitoring, checking. It actually has an impact on the system… I’m sure that the thinking PM represents will be a bigger part of national thinking. So hopefully there won’t be any need to change it over a period of time,” he said.

“During the Russia-Ukraine conflict, PM Modi called both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for a ceasefire for some time so that we can safely evacuate our students,” he added.