NEW DELHI: Congress president
Rahul Gandhi today tweeted wondering how Prime Minister
Narendra Modi will react to news that China has resumed road and other military infrastructure construction in
Doklam by circumventing Indian troops.
"How will Modi Ji react this time? *Hugplomacy *Blame RM *Cry in public *All of the above", tweeted Rahul.
Rahul was referring to the PM's penchant for
hugging world leaders
+ , which the Congress ridicules and calls "hugplomacy", and to the times he's cried in public - while making his first speech in Parliament, during a townhall with
Facebook chief
Mark Zuckerberg, and while paying homage to the religious head of the Swaminarayan sect.
The China reference was to a
TOI report from yesterday
+ .
Sources told TOI that China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) troops are "trying to work around or outflank" the Indian Doklam military outpost, which is located on a ridge, by constructing a new 1.3-km long road and "communication trenches" around 4-km away from the spot. This alternative axis could allow China access to the Jampheri Ridge in south Doklam, as the
PLA had earlier wanted, before the 73-day troop stand-off last year.
Indian security establishment officials on Monday, refused to comment on the news. New Delhi is "highly sensitive" about the Jampheri Ridge because it overlooks its militarily-vulnerable Siliguri Corridor, or the so-called "Chicken's Neck" area.
Officials say China remains keen to usurp Doklam or the Dolam Plateau, disputed between Beijing and Thimpu, to add strategic depth to its narrow Chumbi Valley, which juts in like a dagger between Sikkim and Bhutan.
Rahul Gandhi
