Will the declassification of 1962 war report affect Cong's future?

Bangalore, Mar 18: Call it ill-timing or the fate of the

party but the timing of the release of a section of the highly confidential report on 1962 Indo-China war is likely to cast a shadow on the election aspects of the party.

The Henderson Brooks report, which analyses India's loss to China during the war in 1962 was made public by an Australian journalist, Neville Maxwell. Maxwell published a part of the report on his website saying that the report directly blames Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru for the military debacle. He also said that the reason to withhold the report was 'political.'

This however now makes us think of the timing of the report being published. With less than a month to go for the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress party which is struggling to keep its election campaign afloat may suffer heavily.

With Nehru's name being mentioned in the report, the BJP is likely to raise this point and pitch it against the Congress party.

Even BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi in his rally in Pasighat, Arunachal Pradesh on Feb 22 said that 'China should shed its expansionist mindset.' Modi had raised a lot of eyebrows since he spoke about this at a public gathering.

He said that Arunachal was a part of India and would always remain so. He said: "I will never allow the state to disappear."

Deputy leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha, Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the future generations must now decide who secured the nation more, Jawaharlal Nehru or Sardar Patel? He said that the entire report be made public so that the whole world will know who was behind the military debacle during the war.

The report highlights the preparedness of India and suggests that the Nehru government had given the go-ahead for the Forward Policy inspite of opposition from the on-ground military force that lacked resources, resulting in India losing the war to China.

OneIndia News