evidence: Rahul Gandhi on Saturday accused Modi of using Army’s surgical strikes for political gains. Gandhi accused the PM of shaping the Army’s 2016 surgical strikes across the LoC into a ‘political asset’. He said, "Surgical strikes were conducted thrice during the Manmohan Singh government, as was done during the Modi government. Are you aware of it? (But) Modi actually reached into the Army’s domain and shaped surgical strikes into a political asset." The Congress chief alleged that the Modi government made surgical strikes public as the BJP was ‘fighting a losing election’ in UP. [...] Appreciating efforts of former PM Manmohan Singh, Rahul asserted that three surgical strikes were held during his tenure. "Do you know that like Mr Modi’s surgical strike, Manmohan Singh ji did that 3 times? When Army came to Mr Singh and said we need to retaliate against Pakistan for what they’ve done, they also said we wanted to be secret, for our own purposes," he said.