AK Antony asks Govt to explain why India forces were made to vacate patrolling areas, Kailash ranges

NEW DELHI: Former defence minister AK Antony on Sunday asked the government to explain why the Indian forces, as part of the disengagement agreement with China at the Line of Actual Control (LAC), have been “made to withdraw from the traditional areas of Indian control” which our forces used to “patrol” even as Chinese forces are still camping at petrol point 14.

He also sought to know why the government gave up the “bargaining point” by making the Indian forces come back from the “strategic gain” they had “miraculously and heroically” established at the Kailash ranges.

Arguing that the disengagement agreement had changed the approach at the LAC that the previous governments, including the Vajpayee regime, had followed, Antony said at the AICC briefing: “For many years now, including our time and Vajpayjee’s, the status quo at LAC is up to Finger 8 in Pangong. In Gulwan area, it is up to patrol point 14. But in the Gulwan area, we have now created a buffer zone and we have withdrawn from some of the patrol points. In the Pangong area, we have gone back from Finger Number 8 to Finger Number 3, near where we have our permanent headquarters, even though we have a post at Finger Number 4”.

Terming the disengagement, as explained by the defence minister’s statement in Parliament, “a surrender of our national security and surrender of areas which have been traditionally under our control”, Antony lamented, “our army has withdrawn from our patrolling areas, we have lost our right to go to these areas even as the Chinese army is still at patrol point 14”.

He then asked, “if the same pattern continued, what will happen to our actual positions at LAC points in Hotsprings, Gogra, Despang…” and reiterated the demand for restoring the status quo ante of April 2020. Maintaining that the Congress was for disengagement and peace at LAC, Antony said, “the terms of the current disengagement proved to be an embarrassment as we lost objectivity and bargaining points”.

The former defence minister’s articulation of the Congress case, incidentally, came after the government last Friday disputed Rahul Gandhi’s allegation that the PM had “ceded” parts of the “Indian territory” through the disengagement.

“I have my own language just as you have your own language”, Antony quipped when asked about his response to the verbal skirmish between Gandhi and the government. Incidentally, Gandhi didn’t choose to distinguish between the Indian “territory” and Indian “patrolling areas” when he targeted the government.

Antony also accused the government of “appeasing China” by making only “a meagre 1.48%, just about Rs 8000 crore, more allocation in the budget compared to the last revised budget” despite India facing “a two-front war-like situation”.