GUWAHATI: Responding to China’s release of a fourth list of 30 new names of various places in Arunachal Pradesh, BJP stalwart and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday said he would want Government of India to rename 60 places in Tibet as tit for tat.
“My request to Government of India will be that we should give 60 geographical names to the Tibetan area of China,” Sarma told journalists on the sidelines of an election rally in Assam’s Karbi Anglong.
“It should always be tit for tat but I don’t want to comment because it is a policy decision of Government of India. But if they have named 30, we should name 60,” he further said.
His Arunachal counterpart Pema Khandu condemned China’s act.
“Another gimmick from China. Being a proud citizen of Bharat and a native of Arunachal Pradesh, I strongly condemn this act of naming of places within Arunachal Pradesh which has been an inalienable and integral part of India,” Khandu wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
He said the proud citizens and patriots of Arunachal will reject such antics.
Union minister Kiren Rijiju, who is also from the frontier state, condemned China’s illegally “standardised” geographical names given to the 30 places inside Arunachal.
“China has been making all baseless claims but that’s not going to change the ground reality and the historical facts. Arunachal Pradesh is inalienable part of India, & people of Arunachal Pradesh are supremely patriotic Indians by all standards & definitions,” he wrote on X.