Rahul Gandh's loss, Narendra Modi's gain

India is reeling under Modi-made disasters: 1. Historic GDP reduction -23.9% 2. Highest unemployment in 45 years 3. 12 crore job loss 4. Centre not paying States their GST dues 5. Globally highest Covid-19 daily cases and deaths 6. External aggression at our borders, the worst in Independent India's history. Unfortunately, the government ignored the warnings, says Rahul Gandhi, the former AICC president. His angry outburst is understandable and in fact such criticism is necessary to ensure that there are checks and balances in the democratic system. But then there are two issues that need to be pondered over by the Congress party.

One, it should not criticise just because they are the major Opposition party but should come out with an alternate solution. Secondly, it would have been more effective if Rahul who has so much of foresight had taken over as AICC president before warning the Centre. That would have given greater credibility and weightage to his words. Another important aspect is the timing of criticism. We are seeing that there is hectic movement on borders with Pakistan, China and Nepal indulging in cartographic aggression in a bid to gain precise location of Indian Army camps across the line of control in Jammu and Kashmir. News agencies said that Pakistan had purchased China's Jilin-1 satellite data, comprising high definition video, optical and hyperspectral imagery, for 2020.

The Jilin constellation comprises a network of ten satellites in orbit with the capability of global coverage and it can revisit any location twice a day. "Resolution of panchromatic image provisioned by Jilin-1 is 0.72 m and the multi-spectral image is 2.88 m." On the other hand, there are reports that the BSF had detected a tunnel just beneath India-Pakistan international border fence in Jammu to infiltrate in the border of India. The timing of the Nepali cartographic aggression also reflects the Chinese hand. On May 20, 2020, the Nepal government launched its own map showing Kalapani, present in eastern corner of Uttarakhand State of India as part of Nepal's territory.

On 10 June 2020, the Nepali parliament moved to approve a new map which included territory in India's Uttarakhand. The new map shows Kashmir shares a clear border with China which reflects the intentions of Dragon to push back India so that it will not have any obstacle in controlling the Karakoram Pass and strategic route to the Indian Ocean, experts aver. Dragon has been indulging in the cartographic aggression in all its periphery - East China Sea, South China Sea, Indo Tibetan border and against Tajikistan. However, Dragon's plans do not end with the cartographic aggression. It is aligning its PLA's moves with Pakistani strengthened deployment.

Pakistan is reported to have moved about 20,000 soldiers near the LAC to match the Chinese forward move in Ladakh. This is a well-calculated Chinese machination to keep India under pressure. Against the backdrop of this scenario, young leaders like Rahul Gandhi should have shown greater maturity and should have taken the initiative to rock the Parliament on issues like GST, alleged failure in handling Covid-19 pandemic, highest unemployment, instead of making off the cuff remarks on his twitter handle. It would have greater impact and would have earned him new name and fame. Seems he lost yet another chance to impress the people.