India’s opposition has raised concerns about potential territorial concessions under the country’s recent border agreement with China, increasing political scrutiny of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government as it works to ease tensions with Beijing.
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The controversy erupted after Foreign Minister S Jaishankar’s parliamentary statement on December 4 outlining the disengagement of troops from the border following the deadly 2020 Himalayan border clash.
On Sunday, Jairam Ramesh, a senior leader of the main opposition Congress Party, slammed the agreement in parliament as going against India’s national interests.
“We want to go back to the status quo of April 2020 … thereafter we will be looking at disengagement, de-escalation and normal management of the LAC (Line of Actual Control), referring to the India-China border,” Ramesh was quoted as saying by the Hindu newspaper, hinting that India may have seceded land in the deal.
However, analysts say opposition pressure is unlikely to derail the thawing of relations between the two Asian giants, who have been pulling back troops since late October after years of being locked virtually eyeball-to-eyeball at two positions on the border.
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