VK Singh should be sacked for LAC statement, says Rahul Gandhi

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has said Union minister VK Singh should be sacked over his controversial statements on India’s standoff with China at the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

Singh, the minister of state for transport and highways and a former army chief, said on Sunday that the border with China has never been demarcated.

“With China our border has never been demarcated,” he said in Madurai. “Over a period of time, there have been transgressions where China says this is my perception of the LAC. Similarly, none of you come to know how many times we have transgressed as per our perception. We don’t announce it. Chinese media doesn’t cover it. But let me assure you, if China has transgressed 10 times, we must have done it at least 50 times, as per our perception.”

The Chinese foreign ministry was quick to seize on the statements, and called it an “unwitting confession”. It blamed India for the ongoing conflict along the LAC in eastern Ladakh. “It is the root cause of the tension,” the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said.

“This is an unwitting confession by the Indian side. For a long time, the Indian side has conducted frequent acts of trespass in the border area in an attempt to encroach on China’s territory and constantly created disputes and frictions, which is the root cause of the tensions at the China-India border,” he said.

Rahul Gandhi said in a tweet that Singh was “helping China make a case against India”.

“Why is a BJP minister helping China make a case against India? He should’ve been sacked. Not sacking him means insulting every Indian Jawan,” Gandhi tweeted.

India and China are engaged in a tense standoff in eastern Ladakh. The two sides have held nine rounds of commander-level talks. Thirty Indian soldiers died and an unspecified number of Chinese soldiers were killed during a clash in the Galwan Valley in June last year.