Union External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar launched a stinging assault on Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, claiming that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, not the Wayanad MP, dispatched India Army to the Line of Actual Control (LAC), news agency ANI reported.
His comment came in the midst of the Opposition accusing the Central Government of delaying a discussion on the Tawang dispute.
Responding to Congress and other opposition parties' outrage over China's construction of a bridge on Pangong Lake last year, the Minister stated that the territory had been under China's unlawful possession since the 1962 conflict.
He also claimed that India had dispatched a huge number of troops to the LAC amid border tensions with China, despite the Congress' criticism that the Centre is not doing enough to confront the danger.
Speaking with ANI, Jaishankar stated: "If I would have to sum up this China thing, please do not buy this narrative that somewhere the government is on the defensive...somewhere we are being accommodative. I ask people if we were being accommodative who sent the Indian Army to the LAC (Line of Actual Control). Rahul Gandhi did not send them. Narendra Modi sent them. We have today the largest peacetime deployment in our history on the China border. We are keeping troops there at a huge cost with great effort. We have increased our infrastructure spending on the border five times in this government. Now tell me who is the defensive and accommodative person? Who is actually telling the truth? Who is depicting things accurately? Who is playing footsie with history?"
He was responding to a query on Congress' claim that neither Prime Minister Modi nor the EAM acknowledged China.
Asked about Rahul Gandhi's criticism that EAM doesn’t know much about foreign policy matters & needs to learn more, Jaishankar replied: "If he has superior knowledge, wisdom, I am always willing to listen."
EAM Jaishankar's statements came during an Opposition protest in Parliament saying that the government is refusing to hold a discussion about the clash with Chinese soldiers in Tawang.
In response to Congress's criticism of border communities on the Chinese side of the LAC, he stated the opposition party should recall what occurred in 1962.
“What happens you do this smoke and mirror, oh there is something happening here it is almost like 1962 never happened,” he said.
“We should be building border infrastructure. Why did you (Congress-led governments) not build up infrastructure? Look at the border infrastructure budget during the Modi period, the budget has gone up five times. Till 2014, it was roughly Rs 3000-4000 crore, today it is Rs 14,000 crore. If you look at the roads that are built, the bridges, they have doubled or tripled, look at the tunnels this government is serious about border infrastructure…where as we know the underlining thinking earlier was let us leave it like that till the Chinese cannot come inside which meant you have no intention of contesting them when they came in,” he informed ANI in an interview.
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On the topic of India-China relations, Gandhi suggested that peaceful competition was the way forward and that India could and should be competitive with China in low-value-added production. He also shared personal anecdotes about his family members, including his grandmother Indira Gandhi and father Rajiv Gandhi. Gandhi revealed that his grandmother was his favourite and spoke of their close bond. He also shared that Rajiv Gandhi had a premonition about his death, feeling that a concentration of forces would cost him his life. Gandhi, however, denied being afraid for his life and stated that he does what he has to do.