Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Gunji, a border village in Uttarakhand’s Pithoragarh district, has triggered a political storm in Nepal, with the opposition parties accusing him of violating Nepal’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Gunji is part of the Kalapani-Limpiyadhura-Lipulekh trijunction, which is claimed by both India and Nepal in their official maps.
Modi visited Gunji on Thursday as part of his day-long tour to the border areas of Uttarakhand, where he laid the foundation stones for several development projects and addressed a public meeting.
He also offered prayers at Parvati Kund, Jageshwar Dham and Adi Kailash, and interacted with the locals and the security personnel.
However, his visit to Gunji was not well received with the opposition parties in Nepal, who claimed that Prime Minister Modi entered Nepal’s territory without informing the authorities and demanded an explanation from the government.
Thakur Prasad Gaire of the main opposition Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML), raised the issue in the Parliament on Thursday and questioned how Modi could visit Gunji without without Nepal’s approval.
Gaire said that Modi’s visit to Gunji was a breach of diplomatic norms and an insult to Nepal’s sovereignty. He said that the government should clarify whether it was aware of Modi’s visit and whether it had given permission for it. He also asked why the government had not taken any initiative to resolve the border dispute with India.
He also urged the government to expedite the dialogue process with India to settle the border dispute amicably. The border dispute between India and Nepal over Kalapani-Limpiyadhura-Lipulekh has been a contentious issue for decades. The dispute flared up in November 2019, when India released a new political map after bifurcating Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories.
The map showed Kalapani-Limpiyadhura-Lipulekh as part of India’s territory, which was strongly objected by Nepal. In May 2020, Nepal issued its own map showing Kalapani-Limpiyadhura-Lipulekh as its territory, which was rejected by India. Both countries have maintained that they have historical and factual evidence to back their claims.
The border dispute has strained the bilateral relations between India and Nepal, which share close cultural, religious and economic ties. Both countries have agreed to hold talks to resolve the issue through dialogue and mutual understanding, but no concrete progress has been made so far. The last meeting of the foreign secretaries of both countries on the boundary issue was held in 2014.
Modi’s visit to Gunji has sparked a fresh controversy in Nepal. The government, led by Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba of Nepali Congress (NC), has not issued any official statement on Modi’s visit as of yet.
