BJP pulls up Congress over delayed military expansion in north east

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) National spokesperson Bizay Sonkar Shastri on Thursday pulled up the Congress-led UPA Government for struggling to take decisions in a timely manner, reacting to Wednesday's Cabinet Committee on Security's (CCS) decision to raise the military strength on the Indo-China border.

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"The UPA Government has certainly delayed in taking this decision, like they have in the past. I will even go as far as to say that they have to struggle very hard to take decisions. There seems to be no consolidated organization within the UPA, with regard to decision-making. Sometimes, I even think they have a need to look elsewhere before making any decision", Shastri said.

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Wednesday's CCS announcement cleared a formation of 40,000 additional soldiers to counter China's military strength, by raising the Mountain Strike Corps operation. This planned expansion of military capacity is the first since 2009 when India decided to raise two mountain divisions in the northeast region.

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The Strike Corps are expected to cost the national exchequer Rs. 64,000 crore, and will be spent over a time frame of seven years. It will be headquartered in Panagarh, West Bengal.

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India already has three Strike Corps- based out of Mathura, Ambala and Bhopal-but all of them are ranged against Pakistan, being specifically equipped for desert and plain-line warfare.

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The Indo-China border has been tense in the recent past, after there have been multiple Chinese intrusions in the Ladakh region via land and air.