Modi govt failed to make Chinese pull back from Indian land: Congress

April 19, 2021

New Delhi: The Congress on Sunday accused the Narendra Modi government of “surrendering” India’s strategic interests to China and “woefully compromising” national security, citing reports that China has refused to pull back its troops from Hot Springs, Gogra and Depsang Plains during the last round of Corps Commander-level talks held on April 9.

“How does the Modi Government plan to ensure the status quo ante as on April 2020? After the failure of the military talks with China and compromising our territorial integrity, what plan does the Modi Government have to take back our territory from China? PM Modi must answer,” party General Secretary Ajay Maken asked in a statement.

Even as India is currently “engaged in an internal battle of worst kind in fighting Covid-19 due to BJP government’s apathy & ill preparedness”, he said the Prime Minister has “left the country vulnerable on yet another front by severely surrendering our interests on international borders”.

Maken said that Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had told Parliament on February 13 that the “remaining friction points, including the strategic Depsang Plains, would be taken up for discussion in the next round of military talks”, but now China has “gone back on its assurances and reportedly asserted that ‘India should be happy of what it has achieved'”.

This is nothing, but an attack on India’s territorial integrity, he said.

Based on the statement made by the Defence Ministry, the Congress had asked several key questions to the Modi government, Maken said, “strongly underlining ‘Operation Cover-up’ by the BJP and its weak-kneed leadership that India doesn’t deserve”.

“Media reports now reveal that at Patrolling Point 15 and Patrolling Point-17A in Hot Springs and Gogra Post, the Chinese PLA is ‘much inside the Indian territory’,” he said.

Posing seven questions to the government, the Congress sought to know why it had “relinquished India’s national interests and let down our Armed Forces?” – IANS