Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday asked who had leaked “top secret” information about the Balakot air strike to Republic TV’s Arnab Goswami, underlining that this was a “criminal act” that had put Indian Air Force pilots conducting the raid inside Pakistan at risk.

“This was top secret information. This was not provided to anybody else. There were four or five people who knew this,” the Congress leader said at a news conference in New Delhi, listing the Prime Minister, the defence minister, the home minister, the air chief and the national security adviser as those who would know about such an operation.

“I want to know whether it was the Prime Minister of India who told Arnab Goswami. Or it was the defence minister or the home minister. Or it was the NSA. I want to know which one of those people told this man,” Rahul said.

Three days before the Balakot strike on February 26, 2019, Goswami purportedly said in a WhatsApp message that “something big will happen” and that “on Pakistan the government is confident of striking in a way that people will be elated. Exact words used.”

Giving official secret information to a journalist is a criminal act, Rahul said, both on the part of the person who accepted it as well as the person who gave it.

“These people call themselves patriots. There is nothing patriotic about putting our air force at risk. There is nothing patriotic about taking political advantage so that our aircraft gets shot down. So that the Pakistanis know that our air force is coming. If Mr Arnab Goswami knows, if it’s on his WhatsApp, I assume the Pakistanis also know it. It’s not a very big jump,” Rahul said.

An Indian Air Force fighter had got shot down in the operation.

Asked if he was blaming the Prime Minister for the leak, Rahul said: “I am saying only five people could have done that. It is clear-cut. I want to know who among these five did it.”

An investigation should be held, he added. “The question is who should be booked in this case. Both — the person who gave the sensitive information and the journalist who accepted it,” Rahul said. “The process should have started by now. But that won’t happen. Why? Because the Prime Minister himself might have given the information.”

The Congress leader also described as “distressing” and “anti-national” Goswami’s purported comment, “This attack we have won like crazy”, less than three hours after the Pulwama attack in which 40 CRPF men were killed. Goswami was purportedly gloating about his channel’s coverage of the tragedy.

“To say that we will now win an election as 40 CRPF jawans have been killed is a reflection of the Prime Minister’s mindset,” Rahul said.

The Congress will discuss the WhatsApp revelations at a media conference on Wednesday to be held by former defence minister A.K. Antony, former home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, former external affairs minister Salman Khurshid and leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Ghulam Nabi Azad.

Rahul also attacked the Prime Minister for lack of strategic thinking on foreign affairs, particularly on China.

Responding to a question about the BJP’s criticism of his understanding, he said: “When I warned them about corona and the economic damage that it will cause, they made fun of me. The economy is destroyed. Today, I am saying China is seeing India’s weakness. China has a clear strategic vision. They want to dominate; they want to reshape the world. India doesn’t have strategic vision.”

He continued: “China has tested India twice, in Doklam and in Ladakh. If we don’t send out a clear message to China — military, geopolitical and strategic — they will exploit our weakness. I am raising the red flag for the government. If the government thinks it can tackle the problem by event management and tu-tu-main-main (blame game), they are nurturing a misconception. The BJP can say anything about me but their job is to protect India. They are not doing it.”

Asked about the Prime Minister’s decision to express concern at rioting on the Capitol Hill in the US but not on the deaths of 70 protesting farmers in India, Rahul said: “I heard him say ‘Iss baar, Trump sarkar’. As the Prime Minister of a country, you don’t do something like that. You are disrespecting the people of the United States, that’s their choice, not yours. This is clearly a lack of understanding of fundamentals.”