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Namsai (Arunachal Pradesh): Taking on China for renaming 30 places in Arunachal Pradesh, Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday said that we want to maintain good relations with our neighbours but if someone tries to hurt our honour then today India has the power to respond to it.
Addressing a public rally here today, Rajnath said that nothing is going to happen by changing the names.
"China has changed the names of 30 places in Arunachal Pradesh and posted on its website. I want to tell my neighbour that nothing is going to happen by changing the names. If tomorrow we change the names of some provinces and some States of China, so by doing that will those areas become a part of India? Atal Bihari Vajpayee used to say that friends change in life but neighbours do not change," he said.
"India's thinking is that we want to maintain good relations with all our neighbours but if someone tries to hurt India's honour then today India has the power to respond to it," Rajnath added.
Further, the Defence Minister emphasized that everyone should give their full support to the BJP-led NDA government which has pledged to make India, a 'Viksit Bharat' by 2047.
"Our Prime Minister has also pledged to make India a developed country by 2047. Viksit Bharat is not our slogan but our commitment. If today BJP-led is working to take the country forward, then it should have your full support," Rajnath Singh said.
Meanwhile, China has recently released a list of 30 places in Arunachal Pradesh in a bid to assert its claim over India's northeastern state. India has been rejecting such renaming of places by China.
The Ministry of External Affairs firmly rejected China's attempt to rename several places in Arunachal Pradesh saying assigning invented names will "not alter the reality that the state will always be an integral and inalienable part of India.
"China has persisted with its senseless attempts to rename places in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. We firmly reject such attempts.
Assigning invented names will not alter the reality that Arunachal Pradesh is, has been, and will always be an integral and inalienable part of India," External Affairs ministry official spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal said in an official statement.
According to a March 30 report in its state-run Global Times, the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs released a fourth list of standardized geographical names in Zangnan, the name that China uses for Arunachal Pradesh.
According to the official website of the ministry, 30 additional publicly used place names in the Zangnan region have been officially revealed, the Global Times report said.
