Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Jan 30: Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh lashed out at External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar for his ‘land occupated by China in 1962’ remark and referred to the incursion in 2020 dubbing it as the ‘biggest territorial setback for India in decades’ on Monday.
Taking to Twitter, Jairam Ramesh said, “The External Affairs Minister is playing a starring role in Modi Sarkar’s version of DDLJ.”
Here is my response to the most recent statements of the External Affairs Minister who is playing a starring role in Modi Sarkar's version of DDLJ. pic.twitter.com/UMpevHZ5vk
— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) January 30, 2023
Congress leader’s reaction comes two days after Jaishankar made fun of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s Indian land occupied by China remark, and said that the land was occupied during the 1962 India-China war, and not recently.
“The opposition never say you that the land that was occupied by China was in 1962. They give the impression that it happened later. I won’t go to the Chinese ambassador, but my military leadership for inputs,” said Jaishankar on January 28.
Ramesh said that the EAM’s recent remarks were an attempt to divert attention from the government’s ‘failed China policy’.
“Since May 2020, the Modi government’s preferred strategy to deal with the Chinese incursions in Ladakh has been summed up with DDLJ – Deny, Distract, Lie, Justify. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s recent remarks attacking the Congress party are simply the latest attempt to divert attention from the Modi government’s failed China policy, the most recent revelation being that since May 2020 India has lost access to 26 of 65 patrolling points in Ladakh,” said Ramesh in a statement.
The Congress leader said that the situation in 1962, when the country fought a war with China, cannot be compared with the current one, after which India ‘acquiesced’ to Chinese aggression with ‘denials’.
He further said that the Narendra Modi government should have been ‘honest from the start’ and taken the opposition into confidence by discussing the China crisis in parliamentary standing committees and debating the issue in Parliament.
