Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s claim that not an inch of land from Ladakh has been lost to China is false, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said on Sunday during this trip to the Union Territory.
Gandhi was referring to the prime minister’s statement made after the June 2020 clash between Indian and Chinese soldiers in Galwan Valley of Ladakh. Modi had said at an all-party meeting that India had not lost any territory to the neighbouring country.
Twenty Indian soldiers had died during the clash, while China claimed to have lost four of its soldiers. The two countries have been engaged in a border dispute since then.
On Sunday, Gandhi made the statement while speaking to reporters after paying a tribute to his father and former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on the banks of the Pangong Tso lake on the occasion of his 79th birth anniversary.
“Here people are saying that the Chinese Army has entered our land,” he said. “They say that now they cannot go to the place which was earlier used for grazing. The prime minister said not an inch of land has been lost, but that is not true. Ask anyone in Ladakh, they will tell you this.”
He also said that people of Ladakh do not want to be run by bureaucracy and need an elected legislature.
In 2019, Ladakh was turned into a Union Territory and came under direct central rule following the abrogation of Article 370. Since then, several people in Ladakh have demanded their own legislature and status of a Sixth Schedule area, which outlines the administration of tribal areas in these states.
“They are not happy with the status that has been given to them,” Gandhi said on Sunday. “They want more representation, and unemployment is also a concern. People are saying that the state should not be run by the bureaucracy but by representatives of the people.”
Also read: What’s driving the protests against the Centre in Ladakh?
The Opposition leader is visting Ladakh after he could not visit the Union Territory as part of Congress’ Bharat Jodo Yatra. The movement was started by the leader last year in September from Kanyakumari and finished in Kashmir’s Srinagar on January 31.
Gandhi’s comments on China capturing land in Ladakh were met with criticism from Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Sunday. The former Congress leader who joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2019 asked the Opposition party to look at what they had done during their government.
“Congress who chanted the slogans of ‘Indians and Chinese are brothers’ and gave away 45,000 square kilometer to China should first look within,” Scindia said.
Following the Indo-China war in 1962, India had lost a significant part of land in Aksai Chin. At the time Jawaharlal Nehru was the prime minister of the country.
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