The Opposition Congress on Wednesday raised concerns about the Line of Actual Control (LAC) situation with China, demanding a detailed report from the government and questioning the lack of clarity on key issues surrounding the border standoff.
Speaking to a news agency, senior Congress leader Manish Tewari said that despite the recent announcement of an agreement on patrolling arrangements along the India-China border, there were some very serious questions that still remain unanswered.
“If there has been forward movement with China, that is extremely satisfying and satisfactory. However, there are very serious questions that remain. What exactly was the pre-2020 situation? That has not been elaborated by the government because it has never really come before Parliament for a discussion on the Chinese transgressions,” Tewari said.
Referring to a paper by a senior IPS officer, Tiwari further listed several critical questions that the government needs to answer.
“The second question is, which are those areas into which China transgressed in April and May 2020? How deep were those transgressions? Number 3, has China withdrawn from all those areas in which it had transgressed, or are there some legacy disputes that are still remaining, like Demchok and Depsang? Number 4, what is extremely critical is that there was a paper written by a senior IPS officer in January 2023. In that paper, it was explicitly mentioned that from Karakoram Pass to Chumar, 65 patrolling points–India has lost access to 26 of those. So, have we regained access to those 26 patrolling points now that an agreement on patrolling seemingly seems to have been reached? What has been put out by the Foreign Minister and Foreign Secretary is not really a complete narration of what actually has transpired.”
His comments follow the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA)’s announcement on October 21 that India and China have reached an agreement on “disengagement” along the Line of Actual Control.
Confirming the development, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said that the disengagement process with China has been completed and the situation has gone back to what it was in 2020.
“What the Foreign Secretary has said is what I can also say, that we reached an agreement on patrolling and with that we have gone back to where the situation was in 2020. We can say that the disengagement process with China has been completed…There are areas which for various reasons after 2020… because they had blocked us so we had blocked them. So what has happened is we have reached an understanding which will allow the patrolling,” he said.
The development came ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The two leaders will meet on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Russia today.