While briefing leaders, the ministers avoided giving any clear-cut description on the locational nature and details of the presence of the Chinese troops, sources said. Sources said Jaishankar’s power-point presentation that followed Singh’s speech focussed on narrating the differences in perceptions by India and China about some areas along the LAC since the re-establishment of ties in 1976.

NEW DELHI: Before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement at Friday’s all-party meeting that “no one intruded into our territory”, which resulted in a full-blown controversy and official clarification on Saturday, two senior ministers –– defence minister Rajnath Singh and external affairs minister S Jaishankar –– were extra cautious to avoid the subject at the same meeting, it is learnt.

While briefing leaders, the ministers avoided giving any clear-cut description on the locational nature and details of the presence of the Chinese troops, sources said.

Instead, Singh limited his speech at the beginning of the meeting to praising the valour of the Indian soldiers, saluting the martyrdom of the slain soldiers and asserting how the government was fully backing the armed forces and was committed to upholding the territorial integrity of the nation. Later, Singh made a brief intervention, after the opposition leaders spoke, to state that there was no failure in intelligence gathering about the Chinese plan, it is learnt.

Sources said Jaishankar’s power-point presentation that followed Singh’s speech focussed on narrating the differences in perceptions by India and China about some areas along the LAC since the re-establishment of ties between two countries in 1976, on how India has been reinforcing its strategic positions by constructing some vital roads around the areas, on how the military-level talks had agreed on disengagement at Galwan Valley on June 6 and how China didn’t implement the plan, leading to the clashes and deaths.

After the ministers’ speeches, many senior opposition leaders such as former defence minister and NCP boss Sharad Pawar (who was given the first chance to speak after the two ministers), Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, Sena’s Uddhav Thackeray, CPM’s Sitaram Yechury, CPI’s D Raja, even while extending solidarity with the government and forces and asserting the unity of the nation, gave their suggestions and demands, with some even complaining about not being briefed on all aspects.

They separately sought to know a range of issues, including how and when the Chinese intruded, their evacuation from the Valley, restoration of pre-April/May status quo and defusing the tension through effective response and via diplomacy. Yechury even asked whether the government has any plan to set up a probe committee on the lines of the one set up by the Vajpayee regime after the Kargil war following the Pakistani intrusion.

At the end came PM Modi’s speech, including his controversial statement, triggering the post-meeting row and the clarification.