Assam Congress on Friday said Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's remarks that the country's first PM Jawaharlal Nehru had washed his hands of north-east smacked of her 'half cooked' knowledge.
Speaking exclusively with ABP Live, Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) President Bhupen Kumar Borah said Nehru's speech in Parliament on Chinese misadventure on Indian territory in 1962 exhibited two aspects of the great personality of the then Prime Minister.
"The sensitivity of Prime Minister Nehru, who was deeply anguished over the Chinese betrayal and unprovoked grabbing of the Indian territory in 1962, had said that his 'heart and thoughts' were with the people of Assam and the Northeast," Borah said.
READ | 'Nehru Washed His Hands Of North-East': Sitharaman Slams Cong For Questioning PM Modi On China
"This type of sensitivity from a leader of the country, of course, can never be expected from the likes of present Prime Minister Modi or even his poker-faced 'wooden hearted' colleague Nirmala Sitharaman," he further said.
The Congress leader also asserted that Nehru never ever tried to hide actual facts from the countrymen even when he was in the throes of facing adversity and humiliation in 1962.
"The then Prime Minister not only immediately agreed to convene a special Parliament session to discuss the Chinese debacle, but the Nehru government took every opposition member into confidence by allowing each of them to participate in the debate," Borah said.
Borah claimed that PM Modi and his entire government were hiding actual facts of the Chinese aggression in the last six years.
"The Modi government has throttled the democratic practice of Indian Parliament to such an extent that let alone allowing a special session to discuss the continued grabbing of new Indian territories by the Chinese Army in Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh, it has summarily been rejecting any discussion or entertaining any question raised by members on the issue," the Assam leader said.
Addressing a press conference in Bengaluru on Thursday, Sitharaman hit back at the Congress for questioning PM Modi's "silence" on Chinese actions on the border. She said in 1962, the entire north-east was "left to meet their own fate" and Nehru had washed his hands off the region.
"If you travel to Arunachal Pradesh and some parts of Assam, people themselves will say. The people of Arunachal Pradesh at the ground kept steadily with India and every Chinese had to go away," she had said.
The Union Minister’s remarks came two days after the Congress took strong objection to China renaming several places in Arunachal Pradesh, and claimed it was the result of PM Modi's "clean chit" to the neighbouring country and his "eloquent silence" on Chinese actions at the border.
India has outrightly rejected the renaming, asserting that the state was an integral part of India and assigning "invented" names does not alter this reality.