Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday lashed out at China for renaming 30 places in Arunachal Pradesh. He said that India wants to maintain good relations with neighbours, but if someone makes attempts to hurt nations’s honour, then today India has the power to respond to them.
Addressing a public rally in Arunachal Pradesh's Namsai, Rajnath said that nothing is going to happen by changing the names. "China has changed the names of 30 places in Arunachal Pradesh and posted on its website. I want to tell my neighbour that nothing is going to happen by changing the names. If tomorrow we change the names of some provinces and some States of China, so by doing that will those areas become a part of India? Atal Bihari Vajpayee used to say that friends change in life, but neighbours do not change," he said, as quoted by news agency ANI.
"India's thinking is that we want to maintain good relations with all our neighbours, but if someone tries to hurt India's honour, then today India has the power to respond to it," the Defence Minister further stated.
Singh also emphasised that everyone should give their full support to the BJP-led NDA government, which has pledged to make India, a 'Viksit Bharat' by 2047. "Our Prime Minister has also pledged to make India a developed country by 2047. Viksit Bharat is not our slogan, but our commitment. If today BJP-led is working to take the country forward, then it should have your full support," Rajnath Singh said, as quoted by ANI.
Meanwhile, China released a list of 30 places in Arunachal Pradesh in a bid to assert its claim over India's northeastern state. India has rejected such renaming of places by China. The Ministry of External Affairs firmly rejected China's attempt to rename several places in Arunachal Pradesh and said that assigning invented names will "not alter the reality that the state will always be an integral and inalienable part of India.
In an official statement, External Affairs Ministry official spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal said, "China has persisted with its senseless attempts to rename places in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. We firmly reject such attempts. Assigning invented names will not alter the reality that Arunachal Pradesh is, has been, and will always be an integral and inalienable part of India."
The row over renaming areas in Arunachal Pradesh began when the Chinese civil affairs ministry said it had renamed 30 more places along the India-China border. As per a March 30 report in its state-run Global Times, the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs released a fourth list of standardized geographical names in Zangnan, the name that China uses for Arunachal Pradesh, according to ANI.