Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, accusing him of 'sleeping after taking opium' at a time when China was 'entering' into Indian territory. Kharge's remarks came days after China renamed 30 places along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in India's northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh.
"Modi says 'I have a 56-inch chest, I will not be scared'. If you are not afraid, then why have you left a large part of our land for China? They are coming inside and you are sleeping. Have you taken sleeping pills? Have they taken opium from the fields of Rajasthan... and fed you?" news agency PTI quoted Kharge as saying during his election rally in Rajasthan's Chittorgarh.
Further in his blistering attack, the Congress president called PM Modi a "sardar (chief) of liars" and contended that the Prime Minister's focus was not on the welfare of the nation but on vilifying the Gandhi family.
"He does not think for the country, he just abuses the Gandhi family. He wants to take the people of the country with him by torturing them. He always keeps lying. Modi is 'sardar of liars'," he said.
Additionally, Kharge highlighted that nobody from the Gandhi family has held the position of Prime Minister or Minister since 1989, yet the PM talks about dynastic politics.
The Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs has recently published its so-called fourth list of 'standardised' geographical names for Zangnan, the Chinese name for Arunachal Pradesh, a region that Beijing asserts as part of southern Tibet.
The 30 places renamed by Bejing include 12 mountains, four rivers, one lake, one mountain pass, 11 residential areas and a piece of land. Apart from the list of names, the Chinese ministry also shared detailed latitude and longitude and a high-resolution map of the areas.
India outrightly rejected the development as 'senseless' and asserted that assigning 'invented' names does not alter the reality that Arunachal Pradesh "is, has been, and will always be" an integral part of India.
"China has persisted with its senseless attempts to rename places in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. We firmly reject such attempts," Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said.
"Assigning invented names will not alter the reality that Arunachal Pradesh is, has been, and will always be an integral and inalienable part of India," he added.
