Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair an all-party meeting for the India-China border face-off on Friday. Twenty Indian soldiers were killed from the Monday night brawl and 19 others have been injured.
“In order to discuss the problem in the India-China border areas, Prime Minister @narendramodi has called to have an all-party meeting at 5 PM on 19th June. Presidents of varied political parties would take part 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 through which home minister Amit Shah, defence minister Rajnath Singh and BJP president JP? Nadda is likewise 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 from the incident on June 15.
Union Broadcasting and Information Minister Prakash Javadekar said on Thursday that the country has taken the incident in Galwan Valley very seriously.
“We all pay tributes towards the martyred Army officers and soldiers. Prime Minister Narendra Modi made clear India’s view over that which was done by the neighbouring country China,” the PIB release quoted him as saying.
“India is taking 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 during the Trinamool Congress (TMC). Banerjee, the TMC chief, had on Wednesday said the Centre’s move to call the all-party meeting to share the situation was a right decision.
She had skipped the main ministers’ meeting for the Covid-19 situation because West Bengal had not been given a chance to speak over the video-conference.
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Sanjay Singh, meanwhile, claimed that they have not been invited to Friday’s meeting. “A strange ego-ridden government is running in the Centre. The Aam Aadmi Party includes a government in Delhi. It will be the main Opposition party in Punjab. Still the BJP does not want AAP’s opinion on such an important matter, though there are four MPs all over the country. What is going to the prime minister say in the meeting, the complete country is looking forward to it,” Singh tweeted in Hindi on Thursday.
The Congress, meanwhile, has become attacking the government over the incident in Ladakh. Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi had earlier questioned regardless of if the Indian soldiers were provided for the site from the clash in Ladakh’s Galwan Valley “unarmed”. Foreign minister S? Jaishankar had hit back, saying the soldiers were carrying arms but did not open fire following protocols.
Twenty Indian Army personnel, including a colonel, were killed in a very clash with Chinese troops in eastern Ladakh’s Galwan Valley on Monday night, the biggest military confrontation in over five decades who has significantly escalated the already volatile border standoff between your two neighbours.