China blocking move to ban JEM chief kicks up political storm in the country

Weak Modi is scared of Xi. Not a word comes out of his mouth when China acts against India.

RAHUL GANDHI, Congress chief on twitter

NEWDELHI: A war of words erupted between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the Centre and the opposition parties on Thursday after China blocked a fresh move to designate Pakistanbased Jaish-e-mohammed (JEM) chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist at the UN Security Council.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his China policy. “Weak Modi is scared of Xi. Not a word comes out of his mouth when China acts against India,” he tweeted.

“Nomo’s China Diplomacy: 1. Swing with Xi in Gujarat 2. Hug Xi in Delhi 3. Bow to Xi in China,” he said in another tweet.

The BJP was quick to hit back at Gandhi, saying his great grand- father and India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was responsible for China’s entry in the UN Security Council. “China wouldn’t be in UNSC had your great grandfather not ‘gifted’ it to them at India’s cost. India is undoing all mistakes of your family,” the BJP said on its twitter handle.

Union minister Arun Jaitley alleged that the original mistake, not only on Kashmir but also on China, was committed by Jawa- harlal Nehru. “The original mistake, both on Kashmir and China, was committed by the same person,” Jaitley said in a tweet. Referring to India’s first Prime Minister’s “infamous” letter to chief ministers dated August 2, 1955, the senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader said it was Nehru who said India taking China’s place in the United Nation’s Security Council (UNSC) would be “very unfair for a great country like China”.

“Will the Congress President tell us who the original sinner was?” he asked.

National Conference leader Omar Abdullah, too, accused that the BJP could not claim to have been tough on terror as Prime Minister Narendra Modi “surrendered” to China on Masood Azhar. He also said the NDA government had given Pakistan a “big victory” by not conducting the assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir simultaneously with parliamentary polls. “PM Modi surrendered to China on Azhar and surrendered to Pakistan & its proxies by delaying elections in J&K. How can the BJP claim to have been tough on internal security and tough against terror?” Omar wrote on Twitter.

All India Majlis-e-ittehadul Muslimeen president Asaduddin Owaisi also termed China’s move as a failure of the “jhula diplomacy” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “China’s refusal to cooperate in blacklisting this known terrorist is a classic example of the failure of Modi’s jhula diplomacy,” the Hyderabad MP was quoted as saying by news agency IANS.

This was the fourth time that China blocked the move at the UN Sanctions Committee.