NEW DELHI: India’s opposition political party has raised tough questions after the country’s Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan publicly admitted that Indian Air Force (IAF) fighter jets were shot down during recent clashes with Pakistan.
The rare admission of losses has prompted the opposition Congress party to accuse Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government of misleading the public and demanded a special session of Parliament for a full accountability review.
Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge said that the government had “misled the nation” about the losses sustained in the recent aerial combat.
“The fog of war is now clearing,” Kharge said in a post on X (formerly Twitter), reacting to an interview given by Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Anil Chauhan during the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.
In the wake of the remarks made by the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) in Singapore in an interview, there are some very important questions which need to be asked.
These can only be asked if a Special Session of the Parliament is immediately convened.
The Modi Govt has misled the…
— Mallikarjun Kharge (@kharge) May 31, 2025
In the interview with Bloomberg, General Chauhan confirmed for the first time that Indian jets were downed in the course of the four-day conflict with Pakistan, though he did not disclose the number of aircraft lost.
He acknowledged tactical errors early in the operation and said those mistakes had been identified and rectified.
“What is important is not the jets being downed, but why they were being downed,” he said. “We remedied the mistake and implemented a new plan within two days.”
India’s military confirmed for the first time that it lost an unspecified number of fighter jets in clashes with Pakistan in May.
Anil Chauhan, chief of defense staff of the Indian Armed Forces, spoke to Bloomberg TV on Saturday, while attending the Shangri-La Dialogue in… pic.twitter.com/9y3GW6WJfn
— Bloomberg TV (@BloombergTV) May 31, 2025
According to Pakistan’s official statements, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) had downed six Indian aircraft, including three French-made Rafale jets, during retaliatory strikes following Indian missile attacks on multiple sites in Pakistan. Pakistani jets did not cross into Indian territory during the operation on the night of May 6–7.
The revelation has prompted calls from Congress for an independent investigation into India’s defence preparedness.
“The Congress party demands a comprehensive review by an expert committee on the lines of the Kargil Review Committee,” Kharge said. He urged the government to convene a special session of Parliament immediately to address the issue.
Senior Congress leader and Telangana Minister Uttam Kumar Reddy, a former Air Force pilot, also pressed the government for transparency.
“It appears very clearly that a Rafale fighter aircraft was downed during the operations,” Reddy said, calling on the government to stop denying the extent of losses.
The fact that the fighter aircraft were down is something that the Government of India needs to stop denying. The CDS himself mentioned that. Earlier Air Marshal Bharti had mentioned it indirectly in his briefing along with the DGMO. He specifically said, "losses are normal in… pic.twitter.com/mNdCdb3xGv
— Uttam Kumar Reddy (@UttamINC) May 31, 2025
The controversy intensified after senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy claimed that five Indian jets were brought down by Pakistan.
“Pakistan used Chinese planes to down our French Rafales,” Swamy told local media, adding that “corruption happened in Rafale which won’t be investigated till Modi is the PM.”
Kharge also criticised the Modi government for failing to clarify US President Donald Trump’s claim of brokering a ceasefire between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.
“This is a direct affront to the Simla Agreement,” Kharge said, questioning why Prime Minister Modi had allowed India to be diplomatically “hyphenated” with Pakistan.
Trinamool Congress (TMC) deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha, Sagarika Ghose, questioned why the Indian public was first informed of the jet losses through foreign media.
“Why should international media report this first? Why were these facts not disclosed to Parliament and the public?” she asked.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh criticised the Modi government for its lack of communication with elected representatives.
“It is extraordinary that the nation got to know of the first phase of Operation Sindoor through the CDS’s interview in Singapore,” he said, comparing the situation with the Vajpayee government’s prompt establishment of the Kargil Review Committee in 1999.
Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy accused Modi of not holding an all-party meeting before the ceasefire was announced and questioning how many Rafale jets were lost.
“There is no discussion on how many Rafales were shot down. Narendra Modi should answer,” he said during a rally in Hyderabad.
General Chauhan, in his Bloomberg interview, said the conflict never reached a nuclear threshold. “There’s a lot of space before that nuclear threshold is crossed,” he noted, adding that both sides had acted rationally and with restraint during the skirmishes.
