Rahul Gandhi's questions on LAC leads to heated argument in Parliamentary panel

After former Congress President Rahul Gandhi's questions related to defence and procurement, the Parliamentary Standing Committee had a heated argument during a meeting on Thursday. Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat and other senior officers of the Ministry of Defence were present in the meeting during the argument.

Last week, Rahul had posed three questions to the Centre regarding the India-China disengagement at LAC. The questions were as follows,

• Why our forces are withdrawing from dominant positions in Kailash Ranges?
• Why we are ceding our territory & withdrawing from forward base at Finger 4 to Finger 3?
• Why has China not withdrawn from our territory in Depsang Plains & Gogra Hot Springs?

The Committee held a meeting in connection with the examination of Demands for Grants of the Ministry of Defence for the year 2021-22. One of the members who were present during the argument called the meeting "very storming."

A source was quoted by ANI saying "Rahul Gandhi has attended the meeting in the third session and asked several questions related to defence but the chairman of the standing committee intervened and asked him to discuss his questions in a separate meeting which will be called after a few days."

On February 12, before posing the three questions, Rahul had held a press conference where he alleged that PM Modi had failed in his responsibility to protect the country's sovereignty. Launching a scathing attack on the Centre, the Wayanad MP  claimed that the PM was a 'coward' who couldn't stand up to the Chinese and that he was betraying the sacrifice of the Army. The Defence Ministry, later, released a statement outlining the agreements between both India and China, refuting 'wrongly understood information' - asserting India's territory was till Finger 8 as per LAC and pending issues including the Hot Springs, Gogra, and Depsang will be taken up within 48 hours of the Pangong Tso disengagement.

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Rajnath's Response in LS

Soon after Rahul's statement, Defense Minister Rajnath Singh had explained during his speech in the Lok Sabha about the agreements between both nations on February 12. Asserting that India has not allowed anyone to take an inch of land, he said that India will remain at their permanent base at Dhan Singh Thapa Post near Finger 3 and China at the North Bank area to the east of Finger 8, with similar action agreed to in the South Bank area. He said that there are still some outstanding issues with regard to deployment and patrolling at some other points along the LAC. India and China have also agreed to remove any structures that had been built by both sides since April 2020 in both the North and South Bank areas, restoring the landforms as per the status quo prior to it.

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(With ANI Inputs)