Congress Accuses BJP of 'Normalising' China Border Transgressions After Arunachal CM's Remarks

The Congress on Friday (October 30, 2026) accused Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders of “normalising” Chinese transgressions along the border in Arunachal Pradesh, after Chief Minister Pema Khandu said such incidents “keep happening” and were nothing new.

Jairam Ramesh, Congress general secretary in charge of communications, said in a post on X that Mr. Khandu's remarks contradicted his earlier dismissal of reports of Chinese incursions in Taksing, in Upper Subansiri district. The Congress leader noted that the Chief Minister's statement came a week after the Director General of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) confirmed face-offs at several locations in the northeastern State, some of which were continuing.

Referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's assertion after the June 2020 Galwan Valley clash that no one had entered Indian territory, Mr. Ramesh wrote: “So much for the PM's ‘na koi ghusa hai’. Worse, he treats it as normal.”

He said it was “disturbing” that the Chief Minister attributed the transgressions to the absence of a clearly demarcated border. “Instead of asserting India's position, BJP leaders are rationalising Chinese actions. Nothing about this is normal. This is the new abnormal,” Mr. Ramesh said.

The Congress leader also cited reports of camps of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) on the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and of Indian troops losing access to some patrolling points, and accused the Modi government of maintaining a “deafening silence” over the continuing face-offs.

Mr. Khandu has said the situation along the border was normal and that Indian forces were guarding it effectively. He acknowledged that transgressions did occur, and attributed them to the absence of a defined boundary along the nearly 1,200-km border that Arunachal Pradesh shares with China.

The Line of Actual Control is a mutually recognised line of control that has never been fully demarcated on the ground, a fact that both New Delhi and Beijing have cited in past incidents. Successive agreements, including those of 1993 and 1996, commit both militaries to restraint and to avoiding the use of force along the line. Face-offs between patrolling parties, often over differing perceptions of where the line runs, have been reported periodically for years.

Tensions along the LAC rose sharply after the 2020 Galwan clash, in which 20 Indian soldiers and at least four Chinese troops were killed. Military and diplomatic talks since then have led to disengagement at several friction points, including in eastern Ladakh, and to the creation of buffer zones in some areas. India has consistently held that peace and tranquillity along the border is essential for the normal development of bilateral relations. China, for its part, has described the border question as a legacy issue to be handled through existing mechanisms.

China claims the whole of Arunachal Pradesh as part of its territory, a position India rejects outright and has reiterated on multiple occasions, including after Beijing's renaming of locations in the State.

The political exchange over the Chief Minister's remarks is part of a wider, long-running disagreement between the ruling party and the Opposition over how the border is being managed. Opposition parties have repeatedly sought discussions in Parliament on border infrastructure, patrolling and reported transgressions, while the government has maintained that the border is guarded effectively and that infrastructure along the LAC has been strengthened in recent years.

No response from the BJP to Mr. Ramesh's allegations was available in the report. The Ministry of Defence and the ITBP did not issue any fresh statement on the matter on Friday.