After an initial downright denial, the INC finally admitted that Congress VP Rahul Gandhi met with the Chinese envoy on Monday. Mr. Randeep Singh Surjewala (Congress Spokesperson) gave an official statement on this meeting to a news agency. Regardless of the escalating tension at the Sino-Indian borders, the party was quick to defend RaGa’s stand. In his statement, Surjewala explained that it wasn’t just the Chinese envoys, but also ex-NSA Shiv Shankar Menon and Bhutanese envoy that requested a meeting with Rahul Gandhi.
After an initial outright denial that Congress vice president ever met with Chinese ambassador Luo Zhaohui, Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala finally admitted that Rahul Gandhi did meet the Chinese envoy. If this is the scene then why the party vehemently denied the claims earlier?
Amidst this confusion, RaGa himself took to Twitter raising the curtain on this mystery. He admitted to meeting Chinese ambassador Luo Zhaohui and Counsellor Zhou Yuyun on July 8. The matter captured national attention when the Chinese embassy website published a press release saying “Both the parties exchanged views on the current Indo-China relations and other businesses” on their website. Later, when the Indian media questioned the Chinese embassy about the news source, they took it down for unknown reasons.
In the light of recent Indo-China standoff in Doklam region, it’s hard to fathom Rahul Gandhi’s intent behind this meeting. The border flare-ups resulted from PLA (People’s Liberation Army) or the Chinese army’s encroachment at the Bhutan tri-junction. The Chinese threatened Indian military to back off from their ‘alleged territory’. Considering the current scenario, we fail to understand why the opposition is interested in dating and dining with the hostile neighbors.
When questioned about the meeting, RaGa gave a taunting reply on Twitter, referring to union HRD minister Prakash Javedkar’s Beijing visit. He also posted a picture of Chinese President Xi’s 2014 visit, adding a sarcastic comment to it.
And for the record I am not the guy sitting on the swing while a thousand Chinese troops had physically entered India pic.twitter.com/THG4sULJJC
— Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) July 10, 2017
In times like these, both the Centre and the opposition need to come together to find a long-term solution to this problem rather than indulging in political blame-games.
