Expressing apprehensions that “India’s foreign policy has collapsed”, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, in a post on his social media handle X on Thursday, posed three questions to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar while referring to him as “JJ”.

“Will JJ explain: Why has India been hyphenated with Pakistan? Why didn’t a single country back us in condemning Pakistan? Who asked Trump to “mediate” between India & Pakistan?” the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha questioned while lamenting that “India’s foreign policy has collapsed”.

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Last week, Mr Gandhi had accused the EAM of committing a “crime” by informing Pakistan before launching an airstrike. Later on Monday, the Congress leader again targeted the foreign minister alleging, “EAM Jaishankar’s silence isn’t just telling — it’s damning.”

“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? This wasn’t a lapse. It was a crime. And the nation deserves the truth, he said reiterating his previous question in a post shared on X.

In support of his accusation, Mr Gandhi had posted a video clip on his WhatsApp channel, showing Jaishankar saying: “At the start of the operation we have sent a message to Pakistan saying we are striking a terrorist infrastructure. We are not striking at the military. So the military has an option of standing out and not interfering in this process.”

However, the government has since refuted the allegations saying Mr Gandhi’s claims were “misleading”.

On Thursday, Jaishankar personally clarified that the cessation of firing and military action was negotiated directly between India and Pakistan. He said India had made it clear to every nation, including the US, that Pakistan needs to call India’s general and say that if it wants to stop the firing.

In an interview with the Netherlands-based Nederlandse Omroep Stichting, Jaishankar said that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke to him, and US Vice President JD Vance talked to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He stressed that it is natural that nations call up when there are two nations involved in a conflict.

Responding to another question, Mr Jaishankar said: “… Obviously, US Secretary of State Rubio and Vice President Vance had called up, Rubio had spoken to me, Vance had spoken to our Prime Minister, they had their view and they were talking to us and they were talking to the Pakistani side as indeed were some other countries. There were some countries in the Gulf, there were some others as well.”

In the series of questions that Mr Gandhi has been posing to Jaishankar also includes his jibe describing him as “new age Jaichand”, a simile often applies to dub a person as a traitor.

The Congress leader had, on Thursday, also posed three questions to Prime Minister Narendra Modi: “Why did you believe Pakistan’s statement on terrorism? Why did you sacrifice India’s interests by bowing to Trump? Why does your blood boil only in front of cameras?”

Addressing a public rally in Bikaner on Thursday, the prime minister recalled how terrorists targeted innocents, singled them out by religion and wiped the sindoor off women’s foreheads, and then in retaliation, Indian armed forces buried them in the soil. In the same breath the prime minister claimed: “Sindoor, not blood, flows through Modi’s veins… The terror camps were destroyed within 22 minutes… Armed forces got a free hand and forced Pakistan to back down.”