'PM lacks guts': Rahul Gandhi reaches Parliament holding ex-Army chief's 'memoir', says 'going to give book to PM Modi'

The political confrontation over former Army Chief Gen. M M Naravane’s unpublished memoir intensified on Wednesday, with Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi arriving at the Parliament holding the 'unpublished' version of the book and launching a sharp attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the government’s handling of the 2020 Ladakh stand-off.

Brandishing the book before reporters, Gandhi declared: “I don't think PM will have the guts to come to the Lok Sabha today because if he comes, I am going to give him this book… If the PM comes, I will go physically and hand him this book so he can read it and the country can get to know the truth.”

He said the Speaker’s bar on quoting from the unpublished manuscript would not stop him from highlighting what he claimed were its revelations. “Every youngster in India should see that this book exists. This is Mr Naravane's book. He has given an entire account of Ladakh in this book; I have been told that I cannot quote this book,” Gandhi said.

Gandhi alleged that the memoir describes a moment of paralysis within the government during the Chinese tank movement toward the Kailash Range in 2020. “When the (former) Chief of Army Staff General Naravane called up Rajnath Singh ji and said that Chinese tanks have reached the Kailash Ridge, so what should we do? First, Rajnath Singh did not respond to him. He asked Jaishankar ji, NSA and Rajnath Singh but received no reply.”

He said it was only after repeated attempts that Naravane was told the matter would be escalated. “Rajnath Singh told him that he would ask the ‘top’,” Gandhi claimed, alleging that the subsequent instruction was that Indian troops were not to open fire without prior approval.

According to Gandhi, this left the Army chief isolated at a critical moment despite the Chinese presence inside Indian territory. He said the Prime Minister’s message — “jo uchit samjho wo karo” — amounted to shirking responsibility. “It means that Narendra Modi did not fulfil his duties; he told the Army chief to do whatever he wants as ‘mere bas ki nahi hai.’”

He also cited a line attributed to Naravane: “I felt really alone, I was abandoned by the entire establishment.”