Why were our soldiers sent unarmed?: Rahul Gandhi

Rahul Gandhi has stirred up a political controversy on Thursday by asking why Indian soldiers were defending our territory unarmed at the Galwan Valley on Monday. The PLA of China attacked them, resulting in 20 casualties.

How dare China kill our UNARMED soldiers? Why were our soldiers sent UNARMED to martyrdom? the Congress leader tweeted.

The government gave an answer to Rahul's criticism within no time. Let us get the facts straight. All troops on border duty always carry arms, especially when leaving post. Those at Galwan on 15 June did so. Long-standing practice (as per 1996 & 2005 agreements) not to use firearms during faceoffs, S Jaishankar, the External Affairs Minister, tweeted.

On Wednesday, addressing Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, RaGa asked five questions. Here are the ones:

1. Why insult Indian Army by not naming China in your tweet?

2. Why take 2 days to condole?

3. Why address rallies as soldiers were being martyred?

4. Why hide and get the Army blamed by the crony media?

5. Why make paid-media blame the Army instead of GOI?

In this heated context comes Friday's all-party meeting, to be presided over by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.