Congress questions PM's silence on India-China border issue

Dausa (Rajasthan): Upping the ante on the government over the Sino-India border issue, the Congress on Friday cited the "ballooning" trade deficit and said while trade is "normal" with that country, the border is "abnormal."

Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of "exonerating" the Chinese with his 2020 statement on the border standoff and asked whether what had happened back then was an "incursion" or an "excursion" by the Chinese.

Hitting out at the prime minister over his "silence" on the issue, Ramesh also alleged that the prime minister "forced" Defence Minister Rajnath Singh to read a "most wishy-washy" statement in Parliament earlier this week following the recent face-off between Indian and Chinese forces in Tawang sector of Arunachal, and asserted that it was the Opposition parties' democratic right to seek a debate on the important issue.

"The Prime Minister has met the President of China 18 times. (Former External Affairs Minister) Sushma Swaraj said trade and terrorism cannot go together. But after China disturbed the LAC arrangement in April 2020, our imports from China have zoomed, our trade deficit has ballooned," he said while walking in the Bharat Jodo Yatra here.

"So, trade is normal but the border is abnormal. How can we reconcile this with what Sushma Swaraj had said in respect to Pakistan,"

Ramesh said.