The Congress on Friday said the Centre must respond firmly to Nepal’s move to issue a new Rs 100 currency note featuring a revised map that includes the Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura regions—territories India maintains belong to it.

“This is absolutely shocking… The Government of India needs to act smart and tough. Where is the response from the Government of India?” Congress leader Pawan Khera told ANI.

The Congress’s official X account also criticised the Modi government, saying its foreign policy had “failed”.

“Sometimes China claims Arunachal Pradesh as its part, and sometimes Nepal includes Indian territories in its map,” the party posted. It added that the Modi government had indulged only in “showmanship” in the name of foreign policy, alleging that external affairs minister S. Jaishankar “has made laser lights shoot out from his eyes” while Prime Minister Narendra Modi is busy posing for photographs.

Foreign policy expert Robinder Sachdev cautioned that India’s reaction should be measured and not rhetorical, arguing that a louder response could help political parties in Nepal convert the matter into a nationalism issue.

“I see this as a logical continuation of their first step in 2020, when they included these territories in their map… The whole country is in political turmoil with an interim government. The Indian reaction should not be louder or rhetorical; otherwise anti-India parties will gain more currency and extract political benefit from this controversy,” Sachdev told ANI.

Former diplomat K.P. Fabian said China or Pakistan may have influenced Nepal’s decision.

Calling the move “unfortunate” and “unnecessary”, he said Nepal should have engaged India diplomatically if it believed the disputed areas belonged to it.

“Nepal had no business to do it… Perhaps the Chinese, and even Pakistan, have been prompting Nepal. Nepal has done something foolish in terms of its own interest,” he told ANI.

On Thursday, India called Nepal’s revised map a “unilateral act” and warned Kathmandu that such “artificial enlargement” of territorial claims would not be acceptable.

Nepal’s new Rs 100 note features Mt Everest on the left and a watermark of the national flower, the rhododendron, on the right.

A Nepal Rastra Bank spokesperson said the map already existed on the old Rs 100 note and had simply been updated in line with the government’s decision.

Among various denominations—Rs 10, 50, 500 and 1,000—only the Rs 100 note carries Nepal’s map, he clarified. A faint green outline of Nepal appears at the centre of the note, accompanied by an image of the Ashoka Pillar and the text “Lumbini, the birthplace of Lord Buddha.”

Nepal shares an over 1,850-km border with five Indian states—Sikkim, West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.