Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of lacking “courage” to name China after the Ministry of Defence (MoD) removed a document from its website that mentioned about Chinese transgressions in Eastern Ladakh.

“Forget standing up to China, India’s PM lacks the courage even to name them. Denying China is in our territory and removing documents from websites won’t change the facts”, he said in a tweet.

The Congress said the document was removed from MoD website after Mr. Gandhi tweeted about it in the morning and cited its content to ask “why the Prime Minister is lying”.

The now removed four-page MOD document, under the subheading of Chinese Aggression, had stated that “the Chinese side transgressed in the areas of Kugrang Nala, Gogra, and north bank of Pangong Tso lake on May 17-18,2020”.

Mr. Gandhi used the MoD document to launch a fresh offensive against the Prime Minister and is learnt to have referred to the China issue even during a virtual meeting of party leaders to discuss the coming Bihar elections.

Modi’s assertion

Since June 19, when Mr. Modi asserted at an all-party meeting that ‘none had intruded into Indian territory or occupied any Indian post’, Mr. Gandhi has been targeting the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) had subsequently clarified that Mr. Modi had only referred to the area in Galwan Valley where Indian and Chinese had violently clashed with each other but the Congress continued to raise it.

At a virtual press conference on Thursday, senior Congress leader Ajay Maken asked if the MoD removed its document to ‘save’ the Prime Minister as it contradicted his June 19 statement.

“What the Defence Ministry put up in the morning was removed in the afternoon. Is it to save the Prime Minister? We want to know from the government what is the truth? Is the Defence Ministry telling the truth or is the Prime Minister telling the truth. We would like to know from the Prime Minister”, Mr. Maken said.