Rebuffing China’s claim on Arunachal Pradesh, India on Sunday asserted that the northeastern state was its integral part and ruled out ceding any part of it. “China is often making claims on Arunachal Pradesh, but Arunachal Pradesh has a special place in our heart,” External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who visited a 400-year-old Buddhist monastery here in this border town, the second in importance to the one at Lhasa in Tibet, said.

“People of Arunachal Pradesh regularly elect two representatives to the Lok Sabha and there is an elected state Assembly carrying out the responsibility of administration like any of the other 27 states. The question of parting company of Arunachal or any of its part does not arise,” he said amidst deafening cheers.

Mukherjee’s rejection of the Chinese claim on Arunachal Pradesh follows the recent declaration of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during a visit to the state that Arunachal Pradesh was “our land of rising sun”.

Addressing as chief guest at the 8th Buddha Mahotsava, Mukherjee said “both India and China are seeking a peaceful solution to the border dispute. The special representatives of the Prime Ministers of both India and China have completed 12 rounds of talks. There are problems in identification of land between the two countries.

Amidst loud applause from thousands of people gathered on the occasion, Mukherjee said one of the parameters that India was insisting on in sorting out the boundary issue was that no settled population could be exchanged.

During a public meeting in Arunachal capital Itanagar on January 31 last, the PM had also announced a Rs 20,000-crore financial package for rapid development of the mountainous tribal state. Mukherjee said he was pleased to get an opportunity to come to Tawang, the birth place of the 6th Dalai Lama.

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