Modi govt following DDLJ strategy towards China: Jairam Ramesh

It will do the Modi government well if it tries to focus on getting Chinese troops out of Depsang and Demchok instead of blaming the opposition for their own incompetence, the Congress General Secretary said.

New Delhi:Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh took a quip at External Affairs Minister Dr. S Jaishankar saying that the Modi government is following a unique DDLJ strategy towards China, the acronym for which stands 'Deny, Distract, Lie and Justify'. This came after Jaishankar at a book launch event in Mumbai reminded the missteps the Congress party took in the past, which led to the 1962 war with China.

"Since May 2020, the Modi government's preferred strategy to deal with the Chinese incursions in Ladakh has been summed up with DDLJ - Deny, Distract, Lie, Justify," a statement from the Congress General Secretary read. It alleged that since May 2020 India has lost access to 26 of 65 patrolling points in Ladakh. Jairam Ramesh highlighted that there can be no comparison between 1962 when India went to war with China to defend its territory, and 2020 after which India 'acquiesced' to Chinese aggression with denials followed by 'disengagements' in which India lost access to thousands of square kilometers of territory.

Speaking about Rahul Gandhi's meeting with Chinese envoys, an incident in 2020 which Jaishankar had taken a dig at in his speech, Ramesh said that it is 'ironic' coming from "someone who as ambassador to the US during the Obama administration presumably met with leading Republicans". Are opposition leaders not entitled to meet diplomats from countries that are important from a trade, investment and security standpoint, he asked.

The Modi government should have been truthful from the start and taken the opposition into confidence by discussing the China crisis in parliamentary standing committees and debating the issue in Parliament, he said adding that at a very minimum it should have held detailed briefings for leaders of major political parties.

Hitting out at Jaishankar over his remark at the Congress' questions to the government on China, he further said, "It is extraordinary that EAM Jaishankar has admitted on several occasions that he has no idea why China has turned aggressive on the Line of Actual Control, notwithstanding the unusually frequent contacts between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping and the PM's boast that he enjoys a special 'Plus One' relationship with President Xi."

Attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his one-to-one talks with Xi Jinping in the past he said, "No amount of obfuscation can hide the fact that the Modi government has sought to cover up India's biggest territorial setback in decades that followed PM Modi's naive wooing of President Xi."

As a suggestion, he said that it will do the government well if the External Affairs Minister and the government spend more time trying to get Chinese troops out of Depsang and Demchok instead of blaming the opposition for their own incompetence.