Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) president Bhupen Bora comes out in support of former Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru and criticised Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for allegedly failing to understand the connotation of Nehru's speech in the Lok Sabha on Chinese attack in 1962.
This comes a day after when the Union Minister Sitharaman hit back at the Congress questioning Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “silence” on Chinese actions on the border, saying the country’s first PM Jawaharlal Nehru had washed his hands off north-east. She said that in 1962, the entire north-east was “left to meet their own fate” and then PM Nehru had washed his hands off the region.
Meanwhile, countering her remarks against the first prime minister of India, the APCC president has released a press statement where he stated that the speech of the then Prime Minister Nehru in the Lok Sabha on unwarranted Chinese misadventure on Indian territory in 1962 has now established, in retrospect.
He shared two aspects of the then Prime Minister Nehru in this regard saying, “The sensitivity of the PM Nehru who getting deeply anguished over the Chinese betrayal and unprovoked grabbing of the Indian territory in 1962 had said in his speech in the parliament that his “heart and thoughts were with the people of Assam ( & Northeast)” this type of sensitivity from a leader of the country, of course, can never be expected from the likes of present PM Modi or even his poker-faced 'wooden hearted' colleague Sitharaman.”
He also claimed that the then PM Nehru even in the throes of facing the adversity and humiliation of Chinese attack in 1962, never ever tried to hide the actual facts from the countrymen.
“The then PM Nehru not only immediately agreed to convene a special Parliament session to discuss the Chinese debacle, the Nehru government then took every opposition member into confidence by allowing each of them to participate in the debate. Whereas, the present Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his entire government has been consistently in the denying mode, hiding the actual facts of Chinese aggression in last 6 years. The Modi government has throttled the democratic practice of Indian Parliament to such an extent that let alone allowing a special session to discuss the continued grabbing new Indian territories by the Chinese army in Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh, the government in Parliament has summarily been rejecting any discussion or entertaining any question raised by members on the Chinese intrusions,” Bora added.
Earlier, responding to the media during a press conference, Sitharaman said, “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).”
She further alleged that if anyone travels 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 added.
