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This is an archive article published on August 25, 2023

Evening picture: Greece to China, Moon to Manipur, parties cover length and breadth in war of words

BJP celebrates honour to PM in Athens, brings up Nehru in context of both China and Chandrayaan; INDIA opens LAC front again against govt

Modi in GreecePrime Minister Narendra Modi being welcomed by the Prime Minister of Greece Kyriakos Mitsotakis, in Athens, Friday, Aug. 25, 2023. (PTI Photo)
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Evening picture: Greece to China, Moon to Manipur, parties cover length and breadth in war of words
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After a busy week for the government, with Chandrayaan-3 landing successfully landed on the moon and the 15th BRICS Summit in South Africa being wrapped up, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday travelled to Athens for a one-day visit. During the first trip to Greece by an Indian prime minister in the last four decades, Modi met his counterpart Kyriakos Mitsotakis and was conferred the Grand Cross of the Order of Honour by Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou.

On its X account, the BJP shared visuals of Modi’s address in Athens, the ceremony for the Grand Cross, and the discussions with Mitsotakis on strengthening bilateral ties between the two countries. In his speech, Modi said India and Greece were a “natural union” between “the world’s two oldest democracies.” Not to be outdone by the diaspora in South Africa, crowds of Indians lined up outside the PM’s hotel in Athens, greeting him with chants of “Bharat Mata ki jai.”

But back at home, the PM and BJP continued to be the target of INDIA coalition members’ social media campaigns.

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With an increasing emphasis on the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, a Congress post on X quoted Rahul Gandhi “guaranteeing” the party would defeat the BJP next year. In another post, it said the party would win the upcoming Assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Telangana.

But the BJP shot down Rahul’s “guarantee”, likening it to former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s “gareebi hatao (end poverty)” promise.

On the final day of his Ladakh tour, Rahul addressed a public meeting in Kargil and paid tributes at the Kargil War Memorial to soldiers killed in the 1999 conflict with Pakistan. In a X post, the Congress shared images of his visit and clips from his speech, in which he vowed to raise the issues of Ladakh’s people in Parliament.

“I went to every corner of Ladakh and talked to the youth, mothers and sisters and the poor. There are other leaders who only talk about their ‘Mann Ki Baat’. I want to listen to your ‘Mann Ki Baat’,” Rahul said, in an apparent swipe at Modi’s monthly radio broadcast.

With Modi raising concerns over the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit, the Congress also took aim at the BJP over conflict along the India-China border. With clips from speeches by Modi and Rahul, the Congress said the PM was lying about cross-border incursions and claimed that “thousands of square kilometres of India’s land” have been occupied by Chinese forces.

In response, the BJP brought up Jawaharlal Nehru, yet again. In a video address, Rajya Sabha MP Sudhanshu Trivedi claimed the Nehru government sent “rice supplies to the Chinese army while it was torturing Tibet”.

In a video interview, AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sandeep Singh claimed the government had taken a soft stance on “Chinese occupation” of Indian land and the deaths of Indian troops along the LAC, and instead was encouraging Chinese businesses to make money in India.

The AAP, along with the Trinamool Congress, also pulled up the BJP government over its handling of the conflict in Manipur. In a jibe aimed at Modi, who is in Greece, Trinamool posted a cover of a book attributed to the PM and titled, “How to Ignore Manipur and Enjoy Foreign Tours”.

As the BJP continued to celebrate the success of the Chandrayaan-3’s landing on the lunar south pole, it shared clips of international broadcast media coverage in a post on X. But the post was soon followed by a video in which the BJP said the Congress was unfairly crediting the success of the Moon mission to Nehru and claimed that under the Congress government, the launch of the Chandrayaan-2 mission was delayed over politics and corruption.

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