PM Actually ‘Surender Modi’: Rahul Launches Fresh Attack Over India-China Clash
NEW DELHI : Going a step further in his line of attack over the India-China face off, senior congress Rahul Gandhi on Sunday called Prime Minister Narendra Modi as ‘Surender Modi’ – playing on but misspelling ‘Surrender’ – while targeting him on the LAC standoff.
Rahul Gandhi has sharpened his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the violent face-off between Indian and Chinese soldiers in eastern Ladakh’s Galwan Valley last week, pointing to satellite images to claim that China had “captured Indian territory near Pangong Lake”.
This comes shortly after he called the Prime Minister “Surender Modi” with reference to an opinion piece in The Japan Times that questioned the government’s “appeasement policy towards China”.
In today’s tweet Mr Gandhi said the photos “clearly” contradicted the Prime Minister who, during Friday’s all-party meeting on the India-China tension, was quoted as saying that “neither is anyone inside our territory nor is any of our post captured”.
Satellite images accessed by ndtv show that China’s PLA (People’s Liberation Army) moved over 200 trucks, four-wheel drive vehicles, bulldozers and earth-moving equipment into the Galwan region in the week leading up to Monday’s violence.
On Friday, three days after the clash, “the prime minister Modi said – neither has anyone entered the country nor has anyone captured our territory. Modi told a virtual meeting of several opposition parties that “neither is anyone inside our territory nor is any of our post captured”.
But satellite images clearly show that China has captured Indian territory near Pangong Lake,” the Congress MP said in a tweet posted Sunday evening. Gandhi share a report by international news publication – The Japan Times, that alleged that for years Modi ‘bent over backward to appease China’ and asked if encroachment in Galwan will be ‘enough to change India’s approach towards China?
This also comes amid statements by MEA and the Indian Army wherein they have maintained that disengagement has taken place at Galwan valley in Eastern Ladakh and have rejected China ‘untenable’ claim over India’s land. Government of India also made it clear in the All Party meet – of which Congress was a part – that India has learned from ‘past mistakes’ and will not allow ‘unilateral change at the LAC’.
Earlier on Saturday, Rahul Gandhi took to Twitter and accused the Prime Minister of surrendering the Indian territory to Chinese aggression. In his tweet, he demanded specifics about the location where 20 Indian soldiers were martyred during the face off.
Pangong Lake, also in eastern Ladakh, was the site of skirmishes between Indian and Chinese troops on May 5 and 6, following which tension between the two sides escalated swiftly. Top-level military talks had appeared to defuse the situation before violence late on the night of June 15 led to 20 Indian soldiers dying for their country.
The government hit back the following day, saying “attempts are being made to give a mischievous interpretation” to the PM’s comments and that the violence “arose because China was seeking to erect structures just across the LAC (Line of Actual Control) and (had) refused to desist”.
The government also said that the “Prime Minister’s observations that there was no Chinese presence on our side of the LAC pertained to the situation as a consequence of the bravery of our armed forces”.
Meanwhile, Actor-politician Kamal Haasan joined the debate today, cautioning the government against “emotionally manipulating people” and asking for “accountability” and “transparency”.
(With Agency Inputs ).
