The Congress yesterday charged the A B Vajpayee government with "negligence" in its handling of the Kargil situation. It also demanded that the government reveal all the facts of the situation. "What have they all been doing all this time", Congress leader K Natwar Singh said yesterday, referring to reports on 600 infiltrators crossing over to the Indian side from May 6 onwards.
He wanted to know "whether the country was prepared or not" ? Terming it as "gross negligence", Singh blamed defence minister George Fernandes for the turn of events.
Drawing attention to a defence ministry statement that claimed air operations in Kargil would be over within 48 hours, Natwar Singh said this did not match the statement made by a member of the Prime Minister's Office, which was carried by certain
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One such report had quoted the PMO official as saying that infiltration was going on even as the draft for the Lahore Declaration was being prepared. Jaswant Singh had termed the declaration to be a historic one after it had been signed by Prime Minister A B Vajpayee and his Pakistani counterpart. "But now it is proved beyond doubt that the drum beating was far removed from reality. It also shows in which world they were living", Singh said.
Natwar Singh said his party was dissatisfied with the "briefing" given by George Fernandes to Congress leaders Manmohan Singh and Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday. The two leaders had been invited by Fernandes for the briefing.
"We want a cohesive, integrated, well-argued statement", he said. If it is necessary, we are all for air raids. Singh said the question, however, is "why didn't the diplomacy work?" Whe