Continuing with his direct attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, former   Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday demanded a statement from the PM in response to China’s release of a map that claims ownership of Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh, which has been categorically rejected by India.

“I have been saying for years that what the PM said, that not one inch of land was lost in Ladakh, is a lie. The entire Ladakh knows that China has transgressed. This map issue is very serious.

They have taken away the land. PM should say something about it,” Rahul said while leaving for Karnataka. Last week too addressing a rally during his Ladakh tour, Rahul had raked up the Indo-China border crisis and said Modi is ‘lying’ that not an inch has been doled out to China whereas every individual in the Union Territory knows that China has “taken away our land”. “I visited the whole of Ladakh on my motorcycle over the past week...Ladakh is a strategic place and when I was at Pangong lake, one thing was clear that China had taken over thousands of kilometers of Indian land.

Unfortunately, the Prime Minister during an Opposition meeting makes a statement that not an inch of our land was taken away which is ‘absolutely false’,” Rahul said in his address on the last day of his nine-day tour of Ladakh.        

“Every individual of Ladakh knows that China has taken away our land and the prime minister is not speaking the truth,” he alleged. Rahul’s statement fuelled political attacks with few Opposition leaders questioning Modi on cede of Indian land to China under the NDA regime.  AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi demanded that Centre call a special session of Parliament to discuss the loss of 2,000 km sq territory to China and questioned why was Prime Minister has been keeping the countrymen in the dark.

Expressing concern over the ‘distorted’ map, other Opposition parties too suggested the Centre to use the upcoming G20 Summit in the national Capital to expose China’s transgressions into Indian territory at the global stage. Another party leader said that India should conduct a surgical strike on China.