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New Delhi: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday hit back at the Congress for questioning Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “silence” on Chinese actions on the border and said the country’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had washed his hands off north-east.
“We have stopped Chinese from coming into Arunachal Pradesh. Our action speaks for it. So, they (Congress) can go on saying ‘Oh, Prime Minister doesn’t speak. I want him (Rahul Gandhi) to please check up on what their first Prime Minister, our first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had said. He washed his hands off (north-east)”, news agency PTI quoted Sitharaman as saying.
The Union Minister said that in the year 1962, the entire north-east was “left to meet their own fate” and PM Nehru had washed his hands off the region.
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Addressing a press conference in Bengaluru on Thursday, Sitharaman said, “If you travel to Arunachal Pradesh and some parts of Assam, people themselves will say. The people of Arunachal Pradesh at the ground kept steadily with India and every Chinese had to go away.”
The Union Minister’s remarks come two days after the Congress took strong objection to China renaming several places in Arunachal Pradesh, and claimed it is the result of PM Modi’s “clean chit” to the neighbouring country and his “eloquent silence” on Chinese actions at the border.
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It is to be noted that India outrightly rejected the renaming, asserting that the state is an integral part of the country and assigning “invented” names does not alter this reality.
Centre’s reaction came in response to Beijing announcing Chinese names for 11 more places in Arunachal Pradesh, which the neighbouring country claims as part of southern Tibet.
