‘Indian Army is very powerful, but…’: Asaduddin Owaisi on India-China border row

All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) president Asaduddin Owaisi on Monday yet again hit out at the Centre for not conducting a debate in Parliament over the recent skirmish between Indian and Chinese soldiers along the Line of Actual Control or LAC in Arunachal Pradesh’s Tawang, alleging that Prime Minister Narendra Modi “misled the country by saying that no one has entered our territory”, news agency ANI reported.

The AIMIM chief also said while the Indian Army is very powerful, the government is very weak and is scared of China.

“The prime minister misled the country by saying that no one has entered our territory. There are satellite images that show that Chinese soldiers have occupied Depsang and Demchok. They will continue to grab our land yet the trade imbalance with them will continue?” ANI quoted Owaisi as saying.

Demanding an all-party meeting or a debate in Parliament, Owaisi said, “The government should tell us what decision it is taking on China. If the government shows political leadership then the entire country will support them. The army is very powerful but the government is very weak and is scared of China.

On Thursday, Owaisi had claimed that the Centre had kept people and Parliament in the dark regarding the border situation with China.

“The Modi government has kept the people and the Parliament in the dark. Why is it scared of the truth about China coming out? What is Modi’s interest in hiding the facts about Chinese aggression?” tweeted Owaisi and attached a snippet of a news article regarding “Chinese aggression” along the LAC in Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh.

Owaisi’s latest attack comes even as external affairs minister S Jaishankar on Monday rejected Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s criticism of the government’s handling of the border row.

Indian Army will not let China change the status quo along the Line of Actual Control “unilaterally” and its current deployment along the frontier was not seen before, Jaishankar said at India Today’s India-Japan conclave.

Jaishankar said the deployment of the army was made on the orders of Modi and the army did not go to the frontier region because Gandhi asked them for it.

“Today we have a deployment of the Indian Army on the China border that we have never had. It is done in order to counter Chinese deployment which was scaled up massively since 2020,” Jaishankar said.

He was replying to a question during India Today’s India-Japan conclave.

“If we were in denial then how is the Army out there? The Army did not go there because Rahul Gandhi asked them to go. Army went there because the prime minister of India ordered them to go,” Jaishankar said, replying to Gandhi’s allegations that the government was hiding the fact that China took Indian territory along the LAC.

The Indian and Chinese troops were engaged in a fresh clash in Yangtse area of Arunachal Pradesh’s Tawang sector on December 9.

The incident came amid the over 30-month border standoff in eastern Ladakh.

“People will say things; they may not be credible, they may sometimes contradict their own positions, their own behaviour. All that could happen. But the fact is what is finally the proof of the pudding. The proof of the pudding is that the Indian Army is deployed today to counter any attempt to unilaterally change the LAC,” Jaishankar said.

The external affairs minister said it is the commitment of the Indian Army to not let China change the LAC unilaterally.