Rahul playing 'cheap politics' with baseless claim of China taking over land in Ladakh

JAMMU: A senior BJP leader Saturday accused former Congress president Rahul Gandhi of misleading people with "baseless claims" that China has taken over large tracts of land in Ladakh.

BJP national general secretary and its in-charge for Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh Tarun Chugh also charged that the "anti-national" statements by Gandhi would "demoralise the security forces" guarding the borders at the cost of their lives.

Raking up the India-China border issue, Gandhi on Friday said everyone in Ladakh knows that China has "taken away our land" and claimed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's assertion that not an inch of land was occupied was "absolutely false".

"I visited the whole of Ladakh on my motorcycle over the past week... Ladakh is a strategic place and when I was at Pangong lake, one thing was clear that China had taken over thousands of kilometers of Indian land. Unfortunately, the prime minister...made a statement that not an inch of our land was taken away which is absolutely false," he said at a public meeting in Kargil on the last day of his nine-day tour of Ladakh.

Chugh said Gandhi's statement was "flagrantly misplaced" and "anti-national". The BJP leader accused Gandhi of misleading the people of Ladakh by creating a "baseless fear" among them.

"Under Modi's tenure, not even a single inch of land has gone to China. In fact, it was during the times of the Congress that China encroached on Indian territory while the party-led government sat quietly on the matter," Chugh said in a statement here.

"It is unfortunate that a senior Congress leader coming from the Gandhi family is raking up undue controversies on the India-China border issue to play cheap political games.

"Rahul's soft corner for China is known all over the country after he shared a breakfast meeting with the Chinese diplomats in Delhi during the course of the Doklam crisis. Rahul is only singing the same tune in Ladakh now," Chugh claimed.