A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping reportedly talked on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in South Africa, former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi on Friday raked up the Indo-China border crisis. Addressing a public meeting at Kargil in Ladakh, Rahul 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 kilometres 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. This is the second time during his Ladakh tour that the Congress leader has raked up the border issue with China.
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.”Why is the Prime Minister keeping the citizens of the nation in the dark about what's happening on the Ladakh border?" said Owaisi who is Lok Sabha MP from Hyderabad.
Shiv Sena (uddhav) leader and Rajya Sabha MP Priyanka Chaturvedi regretted the fact that in last few Parliament sessions the Members have been demanding a debate and discussion on China border issue but in vain.
“It is the responsibility of the government of the day to present facts pertaining to territorial integrity and strategic affairs,” said Chaturvedi. Retrospectively, 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.
Rahul Gandhi also extended support to Leh-based Apex body and Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA), which are fighting for full statehood and safeguards under sixth schedule of the Constitution, and said his party would not allow the BJP to hand over the resource-rich land of the union territory to its corporate friend.
Rahul is now scheduled to reach Srinagar for a private two-day and will be joined by his mother former Congress chief Sonia Gandhi. Sources aid said the two senior leaders will have no political engagement or meeting with any party leaders in Srinagar during the "family tour."