Soon after the Union government on June 26 officially disclosed the names of the six armed forces personnel killed during Operation Sindoor last year, Opposition leaders demanded Union defence minister Rajnath Singh’s resignation alleging that Singh had “lied to” Parliament and the general public in his 2025 speech, by claiming that no soldiers had been harmed during the operation.

During Singh’s 55-minute long speech on July 28, 2025, on Operation Sindoor, while he did pay homage to the “braveheart soldiers who gave their all to the country”, he went on to also say that “no soldiers suffered any loss”. This led to the opposition accusing Singh of “concealing the deaths” of the six personnel.

A close reading of Singh’s speech along with the sequence of official acknowledgements made before and after his address, opens up a larger debate — problematising the claims made by both the Opposition and the BJP government.

First, the deaths of at least some of the personnel had already been publicly acknowledged well before June 2026. IAF chief Amar Preet Singh visited the family of sergeant Surendra Kumar Moga on August 12, 2025, around two months after he had been killed in a Pakistani strike during the armed conflict that followed the operation. Further, three out of the six martyred soldiers were announced to be awarded as part of President Droupadi Murmu’s official approval of the 127 Gallantry awards and 40 Distinguished Service awards, on August 14, 2025. Sergeant Moga was to be awarded the Vayu Sena Medal, Rifleman Sunil Kumar would receive the Vir Chakra and Subedar Major Pawan Kumar was to be awarded the Sena Medal.

At the same time, the fact that these three soldiers were martyred in the armed conflict the followed Operation Sindoor or the fact that they were being awarded posthumously was not mentioned anywhere in the government’s official press release for the awards. Only a few weeks before the government’s official disclosure on June 26, Rifleman Sunil Kumar was officially posthumously awarded the Vir Chakra on June 8, 2026.

Notably, Press Information Bureau (PIB) memos announcing Gallantry award recipients normally specify which officials were being honoured posthumously, including the total number of posthumous awards. This can be seen in the precedents set by the 2023, 2024 and 2026 (announced on the eve of Republic Day) announcements. It was only in 2025 that the PIB memo omitted this information.

Second, Singh himself began his July 28, 2025, speech by paying tribute to soldiers who had “given their all” in defence of the country. However, later in the same speech, while responding to the opposition’s questions about the number of aircraft India had lost during Operation Sindoor, he contradicted himself by stating, “Did any of our soldiers suffer any loss? The answer is no.“

Whether Singh’s later remark was intended as a denial of all military casualties or was confined to the Opposition’s specific questions on IAF pilots remains opens to competing interpretations. Alt News examined the parliamentary speech, the opposition’s allegations and the government’s defence in detail.

What Did Rajnath Singh Say?

The defence minister began his speech by paying respects to the soldiers who “gave their all” to the operation, but did not specifically mention the six personnel who had lost their lives. “I pay my respects to the brave soldiers who are ready to sacrifice their lives to protect the country and whenever the country needs it. I…bow…to the memory of those soldiers who gave their all to ensure India’s unity and integrity. On behalf of the whole nation, I express gratitude to all the personnel of the armed forces,” he said.

However, at the 20:15 mark of the speech, he began to attack the Opposition for asking questions on the number of aircraft lost during the operation. Through the length of the speech, he criticised the opposition for “being unable to ask the right questions” and “teaching them right questions to ask” during times of crises. “In any country, the public assigns different responsibilities to the ruling party and the opposition. Both have different duties, and this is natural in a healthy democracy. It is the ruling party’s job to work in the interest of the people, and it is the opposition’s job to ask the government necessary questions related to public issues. Why was Operation Sindoor started? This information has already been given before, and I have given it to the House again today,” he asserted. 

Singh continued, “Sometimes our friends in the Opposition ask how many of our aircraft had crashed. I feel this question does not properly represent our national sentiment. Not once have they asked us how many enemy aircraft our forces shot down. If they must ask questions…their question should be: did India destroy terrorist bases? The answer is yes. I want to tell my respected colleagues in the opposition…if you must ask a question, ask this: was Operation Sindoor successful? The answer is yes.”

“If you must ask a question, ask this: The terrorists who erased the sindoor of our sisters and daughters…did our forces, in Operation Sindoor, erase the masters of those terrorists? The answer is yes. And if you must ask a question, ask this too: in this operation, did any of our soldiers suffer any loss? The answer is no,” he claimed at the 22:26 mark.

Further referring to the opposition’s questions as “smaller issues”, Singh said, “Our attention should not be diverted to comparatively smaller issues, because dwelling on smaller issues can distract from bigger issues like national security and the honour and morale of our soldiers…as seems to be happening with some of our friends in the opposition.”

Opposition’s Allegations

Congress MP and Public Accounts Committee chairperson KC Venugopal on June 30 filed a formal privilege motion notice with Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, accusing Singh of misleading the House. A day prior, on June 29, Congress’ ex-servicemen department held a press conference demanding an apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Singh and government officials.

In the press conference, chairperson of the ex-servicemen department, Col. (retd) Rohit Chaudhry, demanded that Singh be removed from his position and the BJP leaders apologise for supporting his “lies”. “When defence minister Rajnath Singh was lying in Parliament that no soldier had been martyred, BJP MPs were clapping. Rajnath Singh has insulted the country’s army and soldiers. We demand his resignation,” Col. Chaudhry said.

Government Denies Allegations

After the controversy erupted, the Union ministry of defence (MoD) clarified that Singh’s July 2025 statement in Parliament was aimed specifically at debunking a separate false narrative circulating at the time, that IAF pilots had been killed during Operation Sindoor, and was not a blanket denial of all casualties.

As explained above, the MoD’s defence of the minister rests on a contextual reading of his remarks. It is an interpretation of Singh’s remarks rather than something that is unambiguously borne out by his words. While Singh’s comments came immediately after he dismissed questions about Indian aircraft allegedly being shot down, he did not explicitly state that he was referring only to IAF pilots or staff. Instead, he used the broader phrase, “did any of our soldiers suffer any loss?”, making it possible to read his statement as a denial of casualties during Operation Sindoor as a whole. The lack of such a qualification has left room for differing interpretations and fuelled the present controversy.

BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya also took to X to allay doubts. “Your allegation rests on a deliberate distortion of what the Raksha Mantri actually said,” Malviya wrote in a tweet while maintaining the same arguments as the MoD. “His statement in Parliament was made in the specific context of demolishing the false and malicious propaganda that India had lost fighter pilots during #OperationSindoor…” he wrote. His tweet also contained an excerpt of Singh’s speech in Parliament.

Did Government Conceal Deaths?

It is a fact that on June 26, the government formally acknowledged all six deaths for the first time since the operation unfolded. The names of the martyrs have been added to the Roll of Honour on the National War Memorial website and engraved on a wall of ‘Tyag Chakra’ at the National War Memorial near India Gate in New Delhi, under the 2025 section. The six soldiers martryed at Operation Sindoor are:

  1. Subedar Major Pawan Kumar — HQ 10 Infantry Brigade (posthumous Sena Medal)
  2. Rifleman Sunil Kumar (posthumous Vir Chakra) — 4 Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry
  3. Lance Naik Dinesh Kumar — 5 Field Regiment
  4. Agniveer/Aviation Technician Mood Muralinaik — 851 Light Regiment (killed in Pakistani shelling in Poonch on May 9, 2025 — the only Agniveer among the six)
  5. Havildar Sunil Kumar Singh — 237 Field Workshop Company
  6. Sergeant Surendra Kumar Moga (posthumous Vayu Sena Medal) — 39 Wing, IAF

At the same time, it should also be noted that the broader claim that the government attempted to ‘conceal’ the names of the martyrs is not true. The IAF chief’s visit to the Late sergeant Moga’s home in Rajasthan’s Jhunjhunu was in itself an official acknowledgement of the death. Sergeant Moga was a medical assistant with IAF’s 36 Wing in Jammu & Kashmir ‘s Udhampur and killed in a Pakistani strike on the Udhampur base on May 10.