Who sent Army to LAC…Rahul Gandhi?: EAM Jaishankar’s jibe at Congress MP

External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar on Tuesday hit back at Rahul Gandhi who has been targeting the Central government over Chinese aggression on the LAC in eastern Ladakh. Jaishankar said that it was PM Narendra Modi who sent the Indian Army to the Line of Actual Control (LAC) as a countermeasure to troop deployment by China, not Rahul Gandhi. Jaishankar said the Opposition should have the honesty to look at what happened in 1962.

Speaking with ANI, Jaishankar said the Modi government has also increased the budget five times to ramp up the border infrastructure. The minister also said that the area where the Chinese are building a bridge over the Pangong Lake has been under the illegal occupation of China since the 1962 war.

Jaishankar said, "When did that area actually come under Chinese control? They (Congress) must have some problem understanding words beginning with 'C'. I think they are deliberately misrepresenting the situation. The Chinese first came there in 1958 and the Chinese captured it in October 1962. Now you are going to blame the Modi government in 2023 for a bridge which the Chinese captured in 1962 and you don't have the honesty to say that it is where it happened.”

"Rajiv Gandhi went to Beijing in 1988...signed agreements in 1993 and 1996. I do not think signing those agreements was wrong. This is not a political point I am making. I think those agreements were signed at that time because we needed to stabilise the border. And they did, stabilise the border,” the minister said.

Jaishankar also said that the demands are not reasonable, the Central government won’t be able to come to an agreement.

Asked about the Congress' allegation that the Modi government is defensive and reactive on the China issue, Jaishankar dismissed the claims saying there is currently the largest peacetime deployment along the China border.

"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 and who sent the Indian Army to the LAC (Line of Actual Control). Rahul Gandhi did not send them. Narendra Modi sent them,” he said.

(With agency inputs)