New Delhi, Mar 2 (PTI) The Congress on Thursday said the protest by its women's wing against the Chinese foreign minister's visit was an expression of opposition to the Chinese "incursions" at the border.

Congress general secretary communications Jairam Ramesh said the protest in the national capital was to send out a message to the Chinese that altering the status quo ante at the border in eastern Ladakh is not acceptable.

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"The Congress party was expressing on the streets its opposition to China breaking the status quo ante.

"This is to express the Congress party's opposition to the unilateral manner in which the Chinese have altered the status on the Line of Actual Control in April 2020 and their continued incursions not just in eastern Ladakh but even in Arunachal Pradesh," he told reporters.

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In April 2020 the Chinese suddenly abrogated all past agreements on the border, he said, adding that the Congress is only demonstrating to the Chinese that this is not acceptable to us and are reflecting the public opinion.

Targeting the Narendra Modi government, he said, "We have our differences (with the prime minister) on the China issue as he had given a clean chit to China and did not allow a discussion in Parliament. There has been no discussion on the issue of Chinese incursions."

He said in December 1988, there was an agreement between then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Chinese head Deng Xiaoping that was followed by an agreement on the border in 1993 when P V Narasimha Rao was the prime minister and that was followed by another agreement.

In 1996, when H D Deve Gowda was the prime minister there was another agreement and later followed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee's visit to Beijing in 2003, when the decision was taken to appoint special envoys to negotiate a solution to the border dispute.

Suddenly in 2020, the Chinese decided to unilaterally abrogate all understandings, all agreements and they altered the status-quo at the border and the Congress was demonstrating to the Chinese and this is not acceptable to it.

"We are a responsible opposition Party. We are reflecting public opinion in this regard," he said.

Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang was in Delhi to attend the G20 Foreign Ministers' Meeting.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)