Tone down nationalist rhetoric: Deve Gowda

New Delhi: Former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda has asked the Narendra Modi government to institute an enquiry on the deaths of 20 soldiers along the Line of Actual Control in the Galwan valley of Ladakh and tone down the "nationalist rhetoric" to de-escalate the tension with China.

The leader under whom, India and China signed a bilateral agreement in 1996 to reduce troops on their disputed border areas, also said that the Modi government "should not encourage reactionary language of economic boycott".

Gowda said the implications of the boycott are deep and India should be guided by pragmatism.

He suggested to the government that a senior serving military officer and serving diplomat should make a detailed presentation to the opposition leaders on the ground situation of India-China face-off in Ladakh and the progress of talks between the two sides.

"Underplaying certain developments and overstating certain information may be a bad strategy in the long run," Gowda said in his statement.

"Most of the information that is now available to us is from the media, and it cannot be always trusted as accurate. The demand here is not for classified details but truth information," he wrote.