‘ Encourage Bhutan to deploy more troops’

New Delhi, Aug. 25: A parliamentary panel adopted a report on the Doklam issue on Saturday recommending that India should encourage Bhutan to deploy more soldiers on the northern parts of the sensitive region.

Troops of India and China were locked in a 73day stand- off in Doklam in the Sikkim sector from June 16 last year, after the Indian side stopped construction of a road in the disputed tri- junction by the Chinese Army. Bhutan and China have a dispute over Doklam.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi is a member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs, headed by party MP Shashi Tharoor. Gandhi was not on Saturday.

Earlier this month, the panel could not adopt the draft report as most of the BJP members skipped the meeting and the quorum could not be reached, according to sources.

Some members of the panel who were present in today's meeting said the report was adopted with minor modifications. The draft report, circulated among the panel's members on August 6, did not clarify whether the committee was favouring increasing the deployment of the Indian troops in Doklam region.

BJP members of the panel had demanded that statements recorded before the committee by the defence secretary and the incumbent and former external affairs secretaries not be made public. A member of the committee said today that “nothing sensitive and crucial information” shared with the panel by officials has been made public.