Congress leader and MP from Wayanad Rahul Gandhi’s statement ‘China has taken away India’s land’ met with allegation ridden retort from Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi. The BJP leader alleged that Rahul Gandhi ‘lies in the Parliament and he is also lying in Kargil’.
On Friday, Rahul Gandhi addressed a public meeting in Kargil. Gandhi, raking up the border issue, said every individual in Ladakh knows that China has “taken away our land” and claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s assertion that not an inch of land was taken away was “absolutely false”.
BJP leader Sudhanshu Trivedi in retort said that Gandhi has a habit of making baseless and absurd comments about China, adding that the former Congress president makes remarks on India, its people and the RSS in a similar vein.
Trivedi further quoted from selected works of first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru to say that his government had sent over 3,500 tonnes of rice in 1952 for the consumption of the Chinese Army which was “starving”. He also asked the Congress to release its reported agreement with the Chinese Communist Party when the UPA was in power.
Asserting his claim, Trivedi alleged that the decision to send rice for the Chinese Army when India’s relations with China had started getting strained was not a mistake but a “historic and unpardonable” crime.
Trivedi also alleged that during the Doklam crisis, Rahul Gandhi had met the Chinese ambassador.
Notably, Rahul Gandhi’s meet with the China’s ambassador remains a point of contention as BJP has reiterated claim that Gandhi did meet the Chinese envoy. Meanwhile, Congress has not denied the claim, albeit has never specified the time and place of Gandhi and the Chinese envoy’s meet.
Trivedi during the press conference also alleged that Congress government refused to punish Pakistan for its support to terrorism as it thought that this will harm peace talks.
Rahul Gandhi’s statement that parts of Ladakh were under China’s control, comes after Prime Minister Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping held a conversation on Wednesday on the side lines of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) summit in Johannesburg. The conversation was not a structured bilateral meeting and was an informal one.
The ties between India and China came under severe strain following the eastern Ladakh border row that began in May, 2020.
The Indian and Chinese troops are locked in an over three-year confrontation in certain friction points in eastern Ladakh even as the two sides completed disengagement from several areas following extensive diplomatic and military talks.
Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates & Live Business News.
More
Less
Updated: 25 Aug 2023, 04:40 PM IST
www.livemint.com
Source link