Deputy Leader of the Congress in the Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma publicly snubbed his colleague and party leader in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Tuesday by stating that Mr. Chowdhury’s views on China were his personal and don’t reflect the party position.
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Mr. Chowdhury had urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to accord diplomatic recognition to Taiwan without any delay after it had donated one million masks during the COVID-19 pandemic .
In his now deleted tweet, the Mr. Chowdhury had also commented on the border skirmish between Indian and Chinese troops. “Be careful China, Indian forces know how to defang the venomous snakes like you, entire world is watching the sinister design of yellow expansionist,” Mr Chowdhury, the Congress MP from Behrampore, tweeted on Monday.
Contradicting his views, Mr. Sharma who heads the Congress’s foreign affairs department said the party valued the ‘strategic partnership’ between the two countries.
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“The Indian National Congress recognises and values the special strategic partnership between India and China. As two ancient civilisations and large economies of the world both countries are destined to make a significant contribution in the 21st Century,” he tweeted.
“The views of Congress Lok Sabha leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury in China are his own and do not reflect the party position,” he said.
Earlier too, the Congress had to distance itself from Mr. Chowdhury’s comments during the debate on revocation of special status for Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370.
Taking part in the debate, Mr. Chowdhury said the bifurcation of the State into Union Territories has ‘international ramifications’, a statement that contradicted the Indian position of J&K being an internal issue.
