‘It’s a serious issue, PM should speak up’: Rahul Gandhi after China releases map with Indian territories

Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s claim that not an inch of land has been lost in Ladakh was a lie after China in its newly released map claimed Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin as its territory.

Reacting to China’s “standard map” which claims the Aksai Chin region in India’s Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh as its own, Gandhi said, “This map issue is very serious. They have taken away the land. PM should say something about it.”

Rahul Gandhi, who is visiting Karnataka to attend an event launching the Gruha Lakshmi scheme in Mysuru, said, “I have been saying for years that what the PM said that not one inch of land was lost in Ladakh, it is a lie.”

Also Read: India Strongly Protests China’s 2023 ‘Standard Map’ Claiming Indian Territory

Beijing on Monday issued the 2023 edition of its “standard map” in which it staked claim over Arunachal Pradesh, the Aksai Chin region, Taiwan and the disputed South China Sea. India, in response, lodged a “strong protest through diplomatic channels” and “rejected the claims as baseless”.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, in his response, said that China is making “absurd claims”, but that does not make other people’s territories theirs.

“China has even in the past put out maps which claimed the territories which are not China’s, which belong to other countries. This is an old habit of theirs,” Jaishankar said, adding, “It is not something which is new. It started in the 1950s. So just by putting out a map claiming territories some of which are part of India.. I think this doesn’t change (anything). These are very much part of India.”

Also Read: China Asserts Territorial Claims: Release of 2023 Edition Map Raises Concerns Ahead of G20 Summit

The map issue came just a few days after PM Modi met with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Johannesburg and discussed the military standoff along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh.

Earlier in April, India had responded strongly to China’s renaming of some places in Arunachal Pradesh and asserted that the state is an integral part of India and that assigning “invented” names does not alter this reality. It was the third batch of standardised geographical names for Arunachal Pradesh issued by China’s civil affairs ministry.

The first batch of the standardised names of six places in Arunachal Pradesh was released in 2017 while the second batch of 15 places was issued in 2021.

(With inputs from PTI)