Congress attacks PM Modi over giving ‘clean chit’ to China on podcast

After the comments from the Chinese foreign ministry regarding Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s positive outlook on India-China relations and the need for mutual learning and understanding, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh stated that China’s response was “not surprising,” since the Prime Minister had previously offered a “clean chit to China.”

“This is not surprising that China has sent a formal reply and said that this is a dance between China’s dragon and India’s elephant. On June 19, 2020, when our Prime Minister was a non-biological PM, then he had given this statement where he gave a clean chit to China,” Ramesh told .

Ramesh played purportedly a clip of PM Modi from 2020, where in the video the PM is heard saying “no one has crossed our borders, or any of our posts are captured by someone else.”

Replying to the statement, Ramesh added, “He said it two times, that no one has entered or posts have been captured. So when the clean chit was given, it makes sense that China will reply to that. Our power and influence gets weakened after our PM says things like this. Saying things like there was no incursion, so will we call it an excursion?”

“We have raised many questions, and we have demanded only one thing, to have a debate on Parliament over this, take Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha into confidence. The PM should come and give a statement and take questions from others,” Ramesh added.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning commended Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s favorable comments about China-India relations in a podcast discussion with Lex Fridman, emphasizing that partnership in mutual success and realizing “Dragon-Elephant Dance” cooperation is the sole correct option for both nations, as reported by Chinese state media on March 17.

According toa news report , in response to a media question about PM Modi’s recent comments on the Lex Fridman podcast, Mao Ning expressed that China is ready to collaborate with India to fully realize the agreements made by their leaders, using the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations as a chance to enhance exchanges and cooperation in multiple areas and levels, and foster the healthy and stable progress of China-India relations.