Hyderabad: AIMIM chief and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi on Wednesday gave a strong rebuttal to External Affairs minister S Jaishankar on the issue of the border crisis with China.
In a series of tweets, Owaisi said that the ‘bluster and bluff’ from the EAM will not solve the border crisis.
“If the government has nothing to hide on the China border crisis, Mr Jaishankar,
@DrSJaishankar why is it running away from a debate and discussion in Parliament? Why are my questions on the subject denied ? Why is media not being taken there?,” he asked.
“The kind of facetious and irrelevant argument that the EAM gives on China border tells us why control over 2000 sq km of territory has been lost to China by the Modi government? He follows PM’s line of na koi ghusa hai…,” he further said.
The Hyderabad MP also stated that the government has lost control of territory in Ladakh and failed to restore the status quo as it existed three years ago. “Is that not the least that is expected from the government? They can’t even get China to discuss Depsang and Demchok,” he remarked.
He further remarked that the EAM’s response to the crisis shows that the Modi government is ‘scared’ of the truth. whether on ‘2002 Gujarat Pogram or on the Ladakh crisis with China’.
In an interview with ANI, Jaishankar said the Modi government had increased the budget by five times to ramp up border infrastructure.
Referring to Congress and other opposition parties outraging over the Chinese building a bridge on the Pangong Lake last year, the Minister said the area had been under illegal occupation of China since the 1962 war.
In a strong rebuttal to Congress over allegations pertaining to China, he said its leaders must have some problem understanding words beginning with ‘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.
“Rajiv Gandhi went to Beijing in 1988…signed agreements in 1993 and 1996. I do not think signing those agreements was wrong. This is not a political point I am making. I think those agreements were signed at that time because we needed to stabilise the border. And they did, stabilise the border.”
The External Affairs Minister stressed that when other countries’ demands are not reasonable, the government will not be able to come to an agreement.
Asked about the Congress party’s allegation that the Modi government is defensive and reactive on the China issue, Jaishankar dismissed the claims saying there is currently the largest peacetime deployment along the China border.
“If I would have to sum up this China thing, please do not buy this narrative that somewhere the government is on the defensive…somewhere we are being accommodative. I ask people if we were being accommodative who sent the Indian Army to the LAC (Line of Actual Control). Rahul Gandhi did not send them. Narendra Modi sent them. We have today the largest peacetime deployment in our history on the China border. We are keeping troops there at a huge cost with great effort. We have increased our infrastructure spending on the border five times in this government. Now tell me who is the defensive and accommodative person? Who is actually telling the truth? Who is depicting things accurately? Who is playing footsie with history?”,” added Jaishankar in an interview to ANI.
