India on Friday denied the Prime Minister had discussed the China border standoff with the US President after Donald Trump said he had spoken to Narendra Modi about it.

Trump’s claim marks a near rerun of his suggestion in July that Modi had asked him to mediate on Kashmir.

The only difference is that the Indian denial this time is source-based while in July the official spokesperson went on record to say Modi had made no such request to Trump.

This is the second time in two days that Trump has commented on the India-China standoff.

On Wednesday, he had tweeted the US had informed both countries that Washington was “ready, willing and able to mediate or arbitrate their now raging border dispute”.

Neither India nor China has publicly described the face-off — at four sites along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) — as a “raging border dispute”. People in the know have, however, privately acknowledged that this is more serious than the routine dust-ups that happen along the 3,488km border, patrolled by troops from both sides.

Government sources on Friday responded quickly and firmly to Trump’s statement that he had spoken to the Prime Minister, to which he had added that Modi was “not in a good mood about what’s going on with China”.

“There has been no recent contact between PM Modi and President Trump. The last conversation between them was on 4 April 2020 on the subject of hydroxychloroquine,” an Indian government source said.

“Yesterday, the MEA (ministry of external affairs) also made it clear that we are directly in touch with the Chinese through established mechanisms and diplomatic contacts.”

Narendra Modi (PTI)

External affairs ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava had on Thursday responded to queries about Trump’s offer to mediate with a terse: “We are engaged with the Chinese side to peacefully resolve this issue.”

China, too, on Friday rejected the US offer to mediate. News agency PTI quoted Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian as saying the two countries did not want “intervention” from a third party to resolve the face-off, indicating some consultation with India on the subject.

“Between China and India we have existing border-related mechanisms and communication channels. We are capable of properly resolving the issues between us through dialogue and consultation. We do not need the intervention of the third party,” Zhao said in Beijing.

Like Trump’s July claim on Kashmir, his latest statement at a media briefing about the purported conversation with Modi put officialdom in New Delhi in a spot.

This was more so because of the way it affected the carefully cultivated image of the Prime Minister as a muscular leader, and punctured the narrative of a Trump-Modi “bromance” that the government’s supporters flag so often.

For someone who has made a display of his camaraderie with the Prime Minister more than once, Trump has regularly put Modi in an embarrassing situation.

Last month, Trump had spoken of possible retaliation if New Delhi refused to send the hydroxychloroquine tablets sought by the US. India blinked and made an exception to its then two-and-a-half-day-old ban on the export of the anti-malarial drug that has been projected as an antidote to Covid-19.

This, after Modi had organised for Trump a gathering of one lakh-odd people in Ahmedabad in February-end, by when the World Health Organisation had declared the coronavirus outbreak a “public health emergency of international concern”.