In latest salvo, Rahul Gandhi asks Rajnath Singh a question on border standoff with China

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi once again targeted the government over the weeks-long standoff with China in the Ladakh region. In a tweet directed at Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Gandhi asked a question.

“Once RM is done commenting on the hand symbol, can he answer: Have the Chinese occupied Indian territory in Ladakh?” he said on Twitter.

The tweet was in response of Singh’s jibe at Gandhi, who had earlier raised questions over the issue of border dispute with China.

Gandhi had used Mirza Ghalib’s verse to attack Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday morning. “Everyone knows the reality of the borders, but the thought is good to keep one’s heart happy,” he said in a tweet in Hindi, improvising on Ghalib’s couplet.

Singh hit back in the evening with another tweaked version of Ghalib’s couplet in Hindi: “You apply medicine to the hand when it pains, but what to when the hand itself is the cause of pain.”

“Hand” is the Congress party’s election symbol.

Shah had on Sunday said that India’s defence policy has gained global acceptance and the world agrees that after the US and Israel, if there is any other country that is able to protect its borders, it is India.

Gandhi has been attacking the government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the border standoff with China and has been asking the government to come clean on the situation.

The standoff has been going on for more than a month now. A meeting was held on Saturday between the top military officials of both the countries which ended without a breakthrough. But China said after the meeting that a “consensus” was reached. The Chinese foreign ministry also said that differences should not be allowed to turn into disputes.

The external affairs ministry had also said that India and China will continue military and diplomatic contacts to resolve the border standoff.

HT