Cong attacks PM Modi for not naming China

NEW DELHI: THE Congress on Friday questioned when will India look Beijing in the eye while criticising Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not naming China in his address to soldiers in Ladakh amid a military stand-off between the two countries in the region.

In a tweet, Congress’s chief spokesperson, Randeep Singh Surjewala, asked why is “the Prime Minister of a strong India so weak?” He referred to Modi’s June 28 monthly radio broadcast, address to the nation two days later, and Friday’s speech in Ladakh and noted none of them mentioned China. “How long will he desist from taking China’s name?”

Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi took a swipe at Modi, asking “who took our land” along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the de facto border with China. “Ladakhis say: China took our land. PM says: Nobody took our land. Obviously, someone is lying,” he tweeted with a short video tagged to it.

The Prime Minister’s Office on June 20 clarified Modi’s remarks at an all-party meeting a day earlier that no intruder was on Indian territory across LAC with China and that no Indian military post had been captured were being given a “mischievous interpretation”.

Modi, whose visit to Ladakh came days after 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a clash with Chinese troops in the Galwan Valley on June 15, emphasised the time for expansionism is over. He added India is becoming stronger and its commitment to peace should not be seen as a sign of weakness.

Congress leader, Manish Tewari, referred to late former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s visit to Ladakh before the 1971 war. “After she [Indira Gandhi] visited Leh she sliced Pakistan into two. Let us see what he does?” Tewari tweeted. He tagged a picture of Indira Gandhi’s address to soldiers in Leh in 1971.