'Full blown circus': Rahul Gandhi takes a sharp jibe at S Jaishankar for meeting Chinese president Xi Jinping

Rahul Gandhi

Rahul Gandhi, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, has hit out at External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. In a terse clapback, Gandhi posted a media report of Jaishankar-Xi meeting with caption: “I guess the Chinese foreign minister will come and apprise Modi about recent developments in China-India ties.” Taking a jab at the Centre, Gandhi further said, “The EAM is now running a full-blown circus aimed at destroying India’s foreign policy.”

This is not the first time Gandhi has slammed the Centre over China issue. During the last session of Parliament, Gandhi had said that India was at least 10 years behind China in terms of production advancement. He had also lashed out at the Centre saying that PM Modi’s flagship programme ‘Make in India’ has failed to spark any growth momentum in the country.

Since the 2020 Galwan standoff, the Congress leaders has tried cornering the government claiming that the Chinese forces had taken over 4,000 sqkm of Indian territory.

Earlier in the day, Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh pointed out that in his July 14 meeting with China's Vice President Han Zheng, Jaishankar stated that the India-China bilateral relationship "has been steadily improving since the meeting between Prime Minister Modi and President Xi in Kazan last October" and that "continued normalisation of our ties can produce mutually beneficial outcomes".

"Perhaps we should remind the EAM of recent developments in bilateral ties since the PM's last tete-a-tete with President Xi: China gave total support to Pakistan during Operation Sindoor, turning it into a testing ground for network-centric warfare and weapon systems such as the J-10C fighter and PL-15E air-to-air missile and assorted drones," he said in a statement.

The remarks by Gandhi come at a time when both Asian superpowers are trying to normalise the bilateral ties. In the last few months, New Delhi and Beijing have initiated a number of measures to repair the diplomatic relations that had worsened following the deadly clashes between the two militaries in June 2020.

(With inputs from PTI)