On Jaishankar's 'China 1962' dig at Rahul, Congress's riposte: 'In 2020-23, we…'

The Congress on Sunday hit back at external affairs S Jaishankar for his veiled jibe at Rahul Gandhi who had been raising the issue of Chinese aggression along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). On Saturday, Jaishankar, without taking names, said some people deliberately spread wrong news about the China issue by talking about some land taken by China in 1962 and giving the impression this happened recently.

Congress's media and publicity head Pawan Khera said there was a "fundamental difference" between what happened in 1962 and the events in the last four years. Khera said India lost the territory in 1962 after fighting hard against China while this time "we also gave a clean chit to the one we lost our territory to.""There's a fundamental difference between 1962 and 2020-23, Mr @DrSJaishankar," the Congress leader tweeted. "In 1962, we fought hard but lost our territory. In 2020-23, we not only lost our territory, we also gave a clean chit to the one we lost our territory to."

In September 2022, Rahul Gandhi said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given "100 square kilometres of Indian territory" to China "without a fight," and asked the government how it will be retrieved.

When Jaishankar was asked about some people or leaders from political parties in India lacking confidence while speaking about China, he said some people in the Opposition have such thinking which he finds difficult to understand.

"If you want to ask why they have no confidence, why are they misleading people, why they spread the wrong khabar (news) about China? How can I answer these questions? Because I know they are also doing politics. Sometimes they deliberately spread such news that they know is not true," Jaishankar added.

"Sometimes, they talk about some land, which was taken by China in 1962. But they will not tell you the truth. They will give you the impression that this thing happened yesterday," he said.

Jaishankar was interacting with the audience in a question-answer session during the launch of 'Bharat Marg', the Marathi translation of his book 'The India Way', in Pune.