Hours after the Congress denied its vice-president Rahul Gandhi had met the Chinese envoy to India, even describing it as fake news, it admitted that such a meeting had indeed taken place. But not before it had persuaded the Chinese embassy to delete from its website the news item that said the two men had discussed “current Sino-India relations”.
The initial opacity surrounding the meeting, coming as it did against the backdrop of an India-China stand-off on the border, even provided some TV channels the opportunity to cast doubts on Mr. Gandhi’s motives in meeting the Chinese envoy, as Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders leapt into the fray to criticise him. The Congress continued to dither. First, the party’s communication chief Randeep Surjewala tweeted: “Before MEA & IB sources plant news with ‘bhakts’, they should re-verify that we still have diplomatic relations with all our neighbours”. Former party MP Ramya, who heads the party’s social media cell, joined in with this tweet: “Even if Congress V-P had met the Chinese Ambassador, I don’t see it as an issue.”
Eventually, Mr. Surjewala confirmed the meetings had taken place: “Be it the Chinese Ambassador [Luo Zhaohui] or Bhutanese Ambassador [Vetsop Namgyel] or former National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon, Rahul Gandhi met all three of them. Nobody should try to sensationalise such normal courtesy calls,” he said, adding, “various Ambassadors and envoys keep meeting the Congress president and vice-president from time to time.”
Mr. Surjewala was making up for the gaffe earlier in the day when, in a series of tweets, he denied media reports on Mr. Gandhi’s meeting with the Chinese envoy, and castigated “fake news”.
At the official briefing in the evening, Congress leader Manish Tewari, while repeating that the meeting with the Chinese envoy had taken place, in keeping with past practice, trained his guns on the Modi government on the issue.
“I ask, what were ministers Prakash Javadekar, JP Nadda and Mahesh Sharma doing in China at the same time as the PM met the Chinese premier at G-20?” he thundered.
He also stressed that Mr Modi had met Chinese president Xi Jinping at the G-20 summit in Germany last week a day after Beijing announced “the atmosphere was not right” for a bilateral meeting.
Last week, Mr Gandhi had questioned Mr. Modi’s silence on the stand-off with China on Twitter: “why is the PM silent on China?” He had tweeted. His remarks came in the wake of a face-off with Chinese troops in Doklam plateau, a disputed territory between China and Bhutan.
By evening, Mr Gandhi’s office posted a photograph of Mr. Modi and Chinese president Xi Jinping sitting on a traditional Gujarati swing when the two leaders went to Ahmedabad together in 2014 and captioned it: “and for the record I am not the guy sitting on the swing while a thousand Chinese troops had physically entered India”, followed by “It is my job to be informed on critical issues. I met the Chinese ambassador….”
