Taking a swipe at Rahul Gandhi who has been targeting the government over China's aggression on the LAC in eastern Ladakh, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday said that it is not the Congress leader but Prime Minister Narendra Modi who sent the Army to the Line of Actual Control as a countermeasure to troop deployment by China.
In an interview with ANI's special podcast, Jaishankar said the Modi government had increased the budget by five times to ramp up border infrastructure. In an interview with ANI's special podcast, Jaishankar said the Modi government had increased the budget by five times to ramp up border infrastructure. "If I would have to sum up this China thing, please do not buy this narrative that somewhere the government is on the defensive...somewhere we are being accommodative. I ask people if we were being accommodative who sent the Indian Army to the LAC (Line of Actual Control). Rahul Gandhi did not send them. Narendra Modi sent them. We have today the largest peacetime deployment in our history on the China border."
"We are keeping troops there at a huge cost with great effort. We have increased our infrastructure spending on the border five times in this government. Now tell me who is the defensive and accommodative person? Who is actually telling the truth? Who is depicting things accurately? Who is playing footsie with history?"," added Jaishankar
When asked about Rahul Gandhi's opinion that he doesn't know foreign policy, Jaishankar quipped, "If he has superior knowledge, wisdom, I am always willing to listen.”
"They must have some problem understanding words beginning with ‘C’. It’s not true. I think they are deliberately misrepresenting the situation…This govt is serious about border infra," Jaishankar to ANI on Congress saying neither PM nor EAM mentions the word China
Noting that he belongs to a family of bureaucrats and that the political opportunity as a union minister came as a bolt from the blue in 2019, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday said that his father Dr K Subrahmanyam was removed as Secretary, Defence Production, by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi soon after she came back to power in 1980 and he was superseded during the Rajiv Gandhi period with someone junior to him becoming the Cabinet Secretary. "My father was a bureaucrat who had become a secretary but he was removed from his secretaryship. In 1980, when Indira Gandhi was re-elected he was the first secretary she removed...He saw his career in bureaucracy stalled.He was superseded in Rajiv Gandhi period," Jaishankarsaid.
