Is there a deeper plan?: Jairam Ramesh questions narrative on China-Pakistan ties

Congress questioned former CDS Gen Anil Chauhan’s remarks on China-Pakistan cooperation during Operation Sindoor, alleging they contradicted comments by Lt Gen Rahul Singh in 2025. Jairam Ramesh asked whether the Modi government was deliberately changing the narrative on China

New Delhi: The Congress on Thursday raised questions over former chief of defence staff (CDS) Gen Anil Chauhan’s remarks on the issue of China-Pakistan collusivity during Operation Sindoor, wondering whether there is a “deeper plan” by the Modi government to “change the narrative” to please China.

Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh shared on X video clips of Deputy Chief of Army Staff Lt Gen Rahul Singh’s comments from 2025 and of Chauhan’s remarks from earlier this week.

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“On July 4 2025, the Deputy Chief of Army Staff Lt. Gen Rahul Singh had revealed the very disturbingly deep nature of the Pakistan-China jugalbandi during Operation Sindoor. On August 25, 2026, the former Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Anil Chauhan made his own revelations on this jugalbandi — which are simply opposite to what Lt. Gen Singh had said. The nation is confused,” Ramesh said on X.

“What is going on here? Is there some deeper plan to change the narrative? Is this part of the calibrated capitulation to China on the part of the Modi government that has been in clear evidence for a long while since the PM’s infamous clean chit to China on June 2020 and the record trade deficits with China that his Government has presided over? The nation needs to know,” he said.

In his remarks in 2025, Deputy Chief of Army Staff Lt Gen Rahul Singh had said that China used the four-day India-Pakistan conflict in May like a “live lab” to test various weapon systems and was providing all possible support to Islamabad, in line with its ancient military strategy of killing the adversary with a “borrowed knife”.

The senior military officer had said that while Pakistan was the “front face”, with China extending all possible support to its all-weather ally, Turkiye was also playing a major role by supplying military hardware to Islamabad, adding that India was actually dealing with at least three adversaries during the May 7-10 conflict.

In an address at a seminar on ‘New Age Military Technologies’ organised by industry chamber FICCI, Lt Gen Singh had suggested that China used its satellites to monitor Indian military deployment as the Pakistani military was getting live inputs on it during the DGMO (Director General of Military Operations)-level phone talks.

In his remarks on Tuesday, former CDS Chauhan, while speaking on the issue of China-Pakistan collusivity during Operation Sindoor, had said, “The fact of the matter is that Pakistan’s inventory of its platforms today, 70 or 80 per cent is of Chinese origin, whether it is land based, air or navy platforms.”

“We also have an inventory of foreign platforms and when we get those platforms, the maintenance, serviceability, is the responsibility of the OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) and their representatives are normally in the countries in which the equipment is deployed because they are supposed to keep them serviceable. It is being used for war fighting and in a war if this equipment is not available then what is the use,” Chauhan said.

So, the Chinese OEM people would have been there and that is what the Chinese have admitted that their people were there, so there is nothing new in this, Chauhan had said.

“Today in our country as well there could be Russian OEMs, there could be French, Israeli OEMs supporting the same equipment which we are holding. So it is a contractual obligation which we must understand,” he had said.

Chauhan had also said satellite imageries are commercially available, and to say that the provision of satellite imageries to Pakistan by the Chinese would have provided some kind of intelligence would again be incorrect to say.