On 10th August 2023, BJP MP Colonel Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore addressed the Lok Sabha during the ongoing monsoon session of the parliament. The 2008 Olympic medalist was answering the no-confidence motion moved by the opposition. Colonel Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore said that when he along with other players was participating in Beijing Olympics Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi were busy meeting with leaders of the Communist Party of China.
Colonel Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore said, “I was at the 2008 Beijing Olympics in China. We came to know that Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi are coming to meet us, but they did not actually come to meet us nor did they meet us. Their plates were being served by the Communist Party of China. They met the Communist Party of China. They used to run a government on the remote control. If a soldier attempts anything of this sort, he is tried in a sedition case. They (Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi) were running the government at that time. They should be tried for treason.”
''मैं 2008 बीजिंग ओलंपिक (चीन में) में था. हमें पता चला कि सोनिया गांधी और राहुल गांधी हमसे मिलने आ रहे हैं पर वे हमसे मिलने नहीं आए.
— Col Rajyavardhan Rathore (@Ra_THORe) August 10, 2023
वे कम्युनिस्ट पार्टी ऑफ चाइना से मिले थे.'' । उन पर देशद्रोह का मुकदमा चलाया जाना चाहिए…" pic.twitter.com/HtFwE2MbsB
On 7th August 2008, an agreement was made between the Sonia Gandhi-led Congress Party and the Communist Party of China (CPC).
During UPA1 in 2008, the Congress Party and the Communist Party of China (CPC) signed a deal in Beijing for exchanging high-level information and co-operation between them. The memorandum of understanding (MoU) also provided the two parties with the “opportunity to consult each other on important bilateral, regional and international developments”.
Interestingly, the MoU was signed by the then Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi and on the Chinese side, it was signed by none other than Xi Jinping himself, who was then the Chinese vice-president and standing committee member of the CPC’s politburo. The MoU was signed in the presence of his mother and party president Sonia Gandhi.
Before the signing of the MoU, then Congress President Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi had held a long meeting with Xi and other senior leaders of the Communist Party of China to discuss issues of mutual interest.
In 2008, Sonia Gandhi visited Beijing along with Rahul, daughter Priyanka, son-in-law Robert Vadra and their two children to attend the opening of the Olympic Games. A year before, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi had also led a delegation of the Congress party to China.
The 2008 MoU between CCP and Congress came at a time when the Left parties in India had expressed a lack of trust in the UPA-1 government led by Congress. The India Today report suggests that even as China was aware of the political landscape in India, Xi Jinping went ahead and signed the pact with Congress as CCP wanted deeper ties with Congress, especially with the Gandhi family.
