‘PM must follow raj dharma… India should tell China to retreat’

Referring to PM Modi’s visit to Ladakh, Sibal said former Prime Ministers Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Lal Bahadur Shastri had visited forward locations to boost the morale of soldiers. Nehru, he said, visited soldiers in forward locations in NEFA in 1962 but “it appears that our Prime Minister stayed 230 kms away in Nimu, Leh”.

On the Prime Minister’s remarks that the “era of expansionism is over”, Sibal quoted letters exchanged in 1962 between then Prime Minister Nehru and then Chinese premier Zhou Enlai. He said the term Line of Actual Control was coined by Zhou in 1956 and then repeated in 1959, and before and during the 1962 war. At that time, he said, Zhou sent Nehru a letter asking India to accept the 1959 Chinese claim line.

Sibal said Nehru had told Zhou that the demand for India to accept the Chinese 1959 line is a demand to which “India will never submit, whatever the consequences and however long and hard the struggle may be”.

“Paradoxically, the Chinese 1959 line clearly depicted the entire Galwan Valley in India… The times warrant India to look eye-to-eye at China and unequivocally tell them to retreat from their illegal and brazen occupation… Mr Prime Minister, this is the only raj dharma that you must follow,” Sibal said.

Withdraw tax on disability pension for Army: Adhir

New Delhi: The leader of Congress in the Lok Sabha, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, on Saturday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding the withdrawal of tax imposed on disability pension for military personnel. Chowdhury also praised the Prime Minister for visiting the general hospital at Leh to meet the military personnel injured in the Galwan Valley clash.