Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday launched a fresh attack on the Centre over the India-China standoff in Ladakh and said that the country will pay a “huge price” because of the government’s policies.
“China has taken our land and GOI [the Government of India] is behaving like Chamberlain,” Gandhi wrote on Twitter. “This will further embolden China.” Along with his tweet, Gandhi also posted a video from Defence Minister Rajanth Singh’s visit to Ladakh on Friday, in which he said that no country can take even an inch of land from India.
Gandhi’s ‘Chamberlain’ mention in his tweet was a reference to former British Prime Minister Arthur Neville Chamberlain, who was known to have a policy of appeasement towards Adolf Hitler during the period before World War II. He had surrendered parts of Czechoslovakia to Hitler by signing the Munich Agreement in 1938.
Gandhi has also repeatedly accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of surrendering to China and falsely claiming that the neighbouring country did not intrude into Indian territory in Ladakh.
The Congress leader has consistently criticised and questioned the Centre over a range of foreign policy matters over the last few weeks. Last month, Gandhi asked the government how the Chinese were able to attack Indian soldiers along the Line of Actual Control amid the raging coronavirus crisis.
The tensions between India and China have continuously escalated over the past few months. Indian and Chinese troops clashed in the Galwan Valley in Ladakh, along the Line of Actual Control on June 15. The clash led to the deaths of 20 Indian soldiers. Following this, disengagement talks between the two sides were hastened. The representatives of the two countries met for a fourth time on July 14. Previous meetings had been held on June 6 (before the clash), June 22 and June 30.
On Thursday, the Ministry of External Affairs said there was no change in its position on the disputed Line of Actual Control and that the disengagement on the border to resolve tensions with China was an “ongoing process”.
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