Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair an all-party meeting in the India-China border face-off on Friday. Twenty Indian soldiers were killed in the Monday night brawl and 19 others are injured.
“In order to discuss the situation inside the India-China border areas, Prime Minister @narendramodi has called on an all-party meeting at 5 PM on 19th June. Presidents of varied political parties would get involved in this virtual meeting,” the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) had tweeted on Wednesday.
News agency? ANI? reported that 20 parties will attend the virtual meeting wherein home minister Amit Shah, defence minister Rajnath Singh and BJP president JP? Nadda will be present. The defence minister had personally called and invited all leaders with respect to PM Modi on Thursday,? ANI? further reported.
Indian Army officials claimed 43 Chinese were killed or seriously injured within the incident on June 15.
Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar said on Thursday how the country has brought the incident in Galwan Valley very seriously.
“We all pay tributes into the martyred Army soldiers and officers. Prime Minister Narendra Modi made clear India’s view over what was accomplished by the neighbouring country China,” the PIB release quoted him as saying.
“India has brought this incident very seriously,” the senior BJP leader said. If provoked, pM Modi had said ahead of a meeting with the chief ministers on the Covid-19 situation that India is a peace-loving country but can give befitting reply.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will attend today’s meeting, news agency PTI quoted sources within the Trinamool Congress (TMC). Banerjee, the TMC chief, had on Wednesday said the Centre’s go on to call the all-party meeting to share the situation was really a right decision.
She had skipped the primary ministers’ meeting for the Covid-19 situation because West Bengal was not given time to speak over the video-conference.
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Sanjay Singh, meanwhile, claimed they have not been invited to Friday’s meeting. “A strange ego-ridden government is running within the Centre. The Aam Aadmi Party includes a government in Delhi. This is the main Opposition party in Punjab. There are four MPs all over the country, but still the BJP does not want AAP’s opinion on such an important matter. What will the prime minister say during the meeting, the entire country is waiting for it,” Singh tweeted in Hindi on Thursday.
The Congress, meanwhile, continues to be attacking the government above the incident in Ladakh. Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi had earlier questioned whether the Indian soldiers were provided for the site in the clash in Ladakh’s Galwan Valley “unarmed”. Foreign minister S? Jaishankar had hit back, saying the soldiers were carrying arms but failed to open fire following protocols.
Twenty Indian Army personnel, together with a colonel, were killed inside a clash with Chinese troops in eastern Ladakh’s Galwan Valley on Monday night, the main military confrontation in over five decades that has significantly escalated the already volatile border standoff between your two neighbours.
