Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday reminded Congress leader Rahul Gandhi that the Chinese Army had lost 38-50 soldiers in the 2020 Galwan valley clashes, as reported by an Australian newspaper. He said this in response to Rahul Gandhi's recent speech in Lok Sabha in which he had alleged that India lost more soldiers during Galwan valley clash than China.
“He (Rahul) is saying that the number of our soldiers who died at Galwan was more than Chinese soldiers. Should we accept the news of Global Times, which is the official paper of China? Only yesterday, an Australian newspaper, ‘Klaxon’, reported that the number of Chineses soldiers who died at Galwan could be between 38 and 50… our soldiers were fighting with Chineses troops at Galwan you (Rahul) were chatting with Chinese’s Ambassador at Delhi… Our soldiers made sacrifices but never allowed an inch of land to go to China,” Rajnath Singh said during an election rally in Punjab.
He also asserted that India had not lost/ceded any part of its territory in Galwan to China. “I would like to remind him (Gandhi) of history. Does he not know that the Shaksgam valley was handed over to China when Jawaharlal Nehru was the PM of India and the Karakoram highway was constructed through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir when Indira Gandhi was PM. Not any BJP leader was the PM then,” he further said. Rajnath Singh also wondered if Mr. Gandhi lacked a sense of the country's history.
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This comes on the back of allegations by Rahul Gandhi over the government’s foreign policy. “The single biggest strategic goal of India’s foreign policy has been to keep Pakistan and China separate. This is fundamental for India. What have you done? You have brought them together… You have brought Pakistan and China together. This is the single biggest crime that you could commit against the people of India,” Rahul said in the Lok Sabha.
Rahul’s remarks have also been rebuked by bureaucrat turned former Congress minister Natwar Singh. “I'm surprised that nobody from the government's side got up to remind Rahul Gandhi that what he has said is not completely accurate. China and Pakistan have been close allies since the 1960s. It started in his great grandfather's time, who took the Kashmir issue to the United Nations,” ANI quoted Mr. Natwar Singh saying.
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