‘PMO’S statement clearly lame attempt to obfuscate truth’
NEW DELHI: Soon after the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) issued a clarification regarding Narendra Modi's concluding remarks at the all-party meeting on the border issue with China, Congress turned the tables on the Centre by saying that the PMO'S statement was “clearly a lame attempt to obfuscate the truth”. Launching a blistering attack, senior Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi, P Chidambaram and Randeep Surjewala took potshots at the PM over his contradictory remark that neither is anyone inside India's territory nor has any of its posts been captured.
Alleging that the PM has “surrendered” Indian territory to Chinese aggression, Rahul Gandhi in his tweet said, “The PM has surrendered Indian territory to Chinese aggression. If the land was Chinese then why were our soldiers killed and where were they killed?” However, in its rejoinder to the PMO statement, the Congress asked several questions asking the government to state their position on the Galwan Valley, the site in Ladakh where 20 Indian soldiers were killed and 76 others injured in a violent face-off with Chinese troops on the night of June 15-16.
“First of all, PMO and the government need to clearly state their position on the Galwan Valley. Is Galwan Valley not part of Indian territory?” asked Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala.
The Congress spokesperson further said, “Why is government not coming forward and strongly rebutting the Chinese claim over Galwan Valley?
If Chinese troops are present there, does it not amount to intrusion into and occupation of Indian territory? Also, why is the government silent on intrusions in the Pangong Tso area?” Earlier in the day, senior Congress leader and former Home Minister P Chidambaram said that the PM'S remark that “no outsider was inside Indian territory” had practically left everyone “baffled and bewildered”.
“Even after the PM'S statement on Friday, China had blamed India for the clashes and had reasserted its claim on the entire Galwan Valley. What is the government's answer to this claim? Now that China is claiming the entire Galwan Valley, will the government of India reject this claim,” Chidambaram asked.
Stating that the PMO'S statement “belittles the gravity of the situation” on the Indiachina Line of Actual Control (LAC), Surjewala then pointed out that security experts, Army Generals and satellite imagery have confirmed not only one intrusion on June 15 but several intrusions into and occupation of Indian territory in the Ladakh area.
“In the fourth paragraph, PMO'S statement says that with reference to the “events of 15 June at Galwan” the armed forces “repulsed the designs of the Chinese there. 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,” Surjewala said.
“Clearly, the implication is that there was one intrusion on June 15 and it was repulsed,” Surjewala said, asking, “But what about the intrusions between May 5 and June 15?” Referring to the statement of MEA dated June 17 that referred to the agreement reached on June 6 on “disengagement” and “de-escalation”, Surjewala said, “The June 17 statement also said that “the Chinese side sought to erect a structure in Galwan Valley on our side of the LAC.” If Chinese troops are not present in Indian territory, why is the MEA harping on disengagement and de-escalation as late as on June 17?”