In a reaction to recent comments by Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, Army veterans ask if he knows Tibet was handed to China on a platter by their predecessor Jawaharlal Nehru. The group of top retired army slammed Congress for neglecting importance of border infrastructure of India in the past. A joint statement against the Congress leader was issued on Tuesday.
A group of Army veterans in a statement released by the BJP on Tuesday blamed the Congress for neglecting the border infrastructure, while recalling the “Nehruvian blunders in Tibet and Aksai Chin” to remind the party of the India-China legacy issues regarding the Line of Actual Control (LAC), according to the report by the New Indian Express.
“Does Rahul Gandhi know that Tibet was handed over to China on a platter by Mr Nehru and China constructed roads through Aksai Chin later and occupied it when Nehru was Prime Minister?” the statement slammed the Congress and their bitter past. While the statement is being read by some as a political maneuver directed by BJP, it blames the Congress that they neglected the development of Indian border infrastructure, army.
“Had the past governments undertaken border infrastructure development and modernized armed forces to match the hostile adversary, India would have been in a much better position to thwart any misadventure by Chinese much earlier. The Congress, as the party that ruled India for the longest period, is squarely responsible for neglecting the border infrastructural development during it’s more than half a century rule,” the veterans claimed in the statement.
A few days ago Rahul Gandhi took a jibe at Amit Shah’s comments during his Bihar rally saying that everyone knew the ‘reality’ of what was happening at the border. Shortly after he had tweeted saying ‘Chinese have taken our territory in Ladakh,’ questioning why the PM ‘was silent.’
The Joint Statement has been issued by renowned Army veterans such as Lt Gen JBS Yadav(Retd), Lt Gen HS Kanwar(Retd), Lt Gen RN Singh (Retd), Lt Gen SK Patyal(Retd), Lt Gen Nitin Kohli(Retd), Maj Gen PK Mullick VSM(Retd), Lt Gen VK Chaturvedi(Retd), Lt Gen Sunit Kumar(Retd), and Maj gen M Srivastava (Retd).