Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Friday said the Opposition was willing to make any sacrifice to ensure that Indian troops were “battle-ready”.
In her remarks at an all-party meeting convened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the situation along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), she asked the government to assure the nation that status quo ante would be restored and the Chinese would return to their original position.
Ms. Gandhi posed a series of questions, including the one on the possibility of an “intelligence failure”, and asserted that 20 Indian soldiers had to die because of a delay in taking up the issue of intrusion at the highest political and diplomatic level of the Chinese leadership.
“On which date did the Chinese troops intrude into our territory in Ladakh? When did the government find out the Chinese transgressions into our territory? Was it on May 5, as reported, or earlier? Does the government not receive, on a regular basis, satellite pictures of the borders of our country,” she asked.
“The question is, what next? What is the way forward? The entire country would like an assurance that the status quo ante would be restored and China will revert to the original position on the Line of Actual Control,” she said.
She lamented that the government had convened the all-party meeting late and assured it of cooperation from the Opposition in taking on China.
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“We would also like to be briefed on the preparedness of our defence forces to meet any threat. In particular, I would like to ask what is the current status of the Mountain Strike Corps, with two mountain infantry divisions, that was sanctioned in 2013? Should the government not treat it with utmost priority? We, in the Indian National Congress and the entire Opposition, unitedly stand by our defence forces and are prepared to make any sacrifice to ensure they are battle-ready,” she said. India should present “a picture of unity and solidarity to the entire world”, she said.
Ms. Gandhi also urged the Prime Minister to “share with us all the facts and the sequence of events beginning April this year till date”.
