PM Modi is on foreign visits but govt not taking Chinese incursions seriously: Congress

The Congress on Tuesday accused the Centre of not taking Chinese incursions seriously and asked it to take proper steps to counter a possible attack or speedily engage with Beijing through diplomatic channels.

Accusing Union ministers of only delivering speeches, AICC senior spokesperson Ajay Maken asked how the government intended to combat repeated “incursions”, when it was “downgrading” the threat as “transgressions”.

“On the one hand, the prime minister is on foreign visits. On the other, we have seen that our government itself is not taking the incursions seriously,” Maken alleged.

“Our government calls the incursion a transgression. When you only will downgrade the incursion as transgression, how will you fight it?” he asked.

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The former minister said the BJP-led NDA government needs to prepare itself on the ground, “be it on borders shared with China or Pakistan” for any possible attack.

“First of all, you will need to understand it is a Chinese incursion. The government needs to speedily take aggressive steps or act through apt diplomatic means,” he said.

“The government only delivers speeches. Intruders are continuously entering India. It is a record high, it never happened so in the past,” he claimed.

Asked about his views on the government’s “proactive” deployment of Indian security personnel in Doklam area near Sikkim, Maken said had the government been proactive, there would be “no incursions” in the first place.

“This government only talks...,” he said.

Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi has expressed concern over the rising infiltrations along the border with China and asked the government what was its strategy to resolve the issue and deal with national security which was “going through turbulent times”.

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The party leader said “unfortunately, it appears that this government has been caught napping” and has not been able to implement recent accords between the two countries signed by the UPA government, which have been violated.

Singhvi said the Congress, however, stands solidly behind the government on issues of national security and on steps taken in national interest to resolve the current stand-off with China.