By IANS
New Delhi : Even as Congress president Sonia Gandhi went on an official visit to China, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Thursday raised the issue of intrusion by Chinese troops into Indian territory in recent times.
BJP spokesperson Rajiv Pratap Rudy told reporters here: “This fact has also been categorically confirmed by the Director General of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), who has stated that over 140 such intrusions have taken place over the last one year in the regions of both Arunachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.”
Rajiv Pratap Rudy further said: “The statement of the ITBP chief vindicates the assertion and claim of the party MP from Arunachal Pradesh, Khiran Rijuju, who after extensive scouting in the inaccessible terrains, has repeatedly asserted the fact about Chinese incursions and has also raised it on all forums, including parliament where it has been repudiated by the government in general and Home Minister Shivraj Patil in particular.”
Charging the Left and the Congress with maintaining a deafening silence on this issue of national security and sovereignty, the BJP spokesperson said both Communist Party of India-Marxist General Secretary Prakash Karat and United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi have only confined themselves to congratulating Chinese President Hu Jintao on his re-election as the general secretary of the ruling Communist Party in China.
The incursions were simply not the inadvertent misadventures of lost Chinese patrols, but point towards the existence of a “carefully designed strategy to undermine India’s territorial integrity”, Rudy stated.
“In the absence of any strong government reaction on the issue, what is even more shocking is that in the meantime Sonia Gandhi has embarked on a five-day tour to China accompanied by her son Rahul Gandhi with an undisclosed agenda. The complete silence maintained by this high-level entourage comprising even senior ministers of the UPA government is indeed shocking,” Rudy said.
He also reminded reporters about the refusal of Chinese visa to the Arunachal cadre Indian Administrative Services (IAS) officers of the 1991 batch for a study tour sponsored by the Indian government to Beijing and Shanghai.
“The Chinese claim is that since Arunachal Pradesh is a part of China, hence the officers in question were Chinese citizens who therefore required no visa. This has to also be viewed in the context of earlier visa refusals to even state ministers of Arunachal Pradesh. All these incidents are indicative of the fact that China rarely misses an opportunity to put forth its claim on Arunachal Pradesh,” Rudy said.
He reiterated that the “tactful diplomacy” of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government has compelled China to forfeit its claims over the Indian state of Sikkim and had set a successful milestone in the direction of permanently settling all territorial disputes.
“The UPA government, seemingly under the pressure of its Left Front allies, is making camouflaged niceties to China in its attempt to placate the Left partners at home and in the process compromising the nation’s territorial integrity,” Rudy said.
Rudy also attacked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on his reported statements that he had come into politics by accident. “Let me remind that the country is not run by accident,” the BJP leader said. He said that Singh is a “helpless man” who seems to have been divested of his legitimate executive authority.