A day after Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s assertion that “no country in the world can touch or occupy even an inch of India’s territory”, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said India will have to pay a “huge price” because of the government’s “cowardly actions”.

He equated the government of India to former U.K. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who let Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler have his way in the run-up to the Second World War.

“China has taken our land and GOI is behaving like Chamberlain. This will further embolden China. India is going to pay a huge price because of GOI’s cowardly actions,” Mr. Gandhi tweeted attaching a video clip of the Defence Minister’s speech from Ladakh.Earlier, Congress leader P. Chidambaram tweeted that Mr. Singh’s statement was just rhetoric, considering that the Chinese troops were still 1.5 km inside the Indian side of the LAC, as per the assessment of the security agencies.

Mr. Chidambaram said that in May, the Chinese troops had entered up to five km on the Indian side of the LAC. “All talk of ‘no one had intruded into Indian territory and no one is inside Indian territory’ is empty rhetoric. As long as the government does not acknowledge the reality, the status quo ante will be an elusive goal,” he said.