Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Feb 21: External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said in retaliation for Rahul Gandhi’s criticism of the government over China’s aggression on the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh on Tuesday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi sent the Army to the Line of Actual Control as a countermeasure to China’s troop deployment and that the opposition party should be honest enough to consider what transpired in 1962.
Dr. Jaishankar claimed in an interview with ANI that the Modi administration has boosted the budget by five times in order to expand border infrastructure.
The Minister stated the region had been illegally occupied by China since the 1962 conflict, in reference to Congress and other Opposition parties’ outrage over the Chinese construction of a bridge on the Pangong Lake last year.
He strongly refuted accusations made against China in Congress, claiming that its officials must have trouble understanding terms that start with the letter “C.”
“When did that area actually come under Chinese control? They [Congress] must have some problem understanding words beginning with ‘C’. I think they are deliberately misrepresenting the situation. The Chinese first came there in 1958 and the Chinese captured it in October 1962. Now you are going to blame the Modi Government in 2023 for a bridge which the Chinese captured in 1962 and you don’t have the honesty to say that it is where it happened,” said Dr. Jaishankar.
The Foreign Affairs Minister emphasised that the administration will not be able to reach an agreement if the demands of other nations are unreasonable.
When questioned about the Congress party’s charge that the Modi administration is defensive and reactive on the China issue, Dr. Jaishankar rejected the charge, stating that the current peacetime deployment along the China border is the greatest ever.
The External Affairs Minister made a subtle jab at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi when he was asked about his comments that he needed to study more about foreign policy and that he was open to listen to the Wayanad MP if he had ‘better knowledge and judgement’ on China.
“I think he said this somewhere in a public meeting. It is probably in the context of China. All I can say in my defence is I have been the longest-serving ambassador in China. I have been dealing with a lot of these border issues for a very long time. I am not suggesting that I am necessarily the most knowledgeable person but I would have a fairly good self-opinion of my understanding of what is up there. If he has superior knowledge and wisdom for China, I am always willing to listen,” he added.
