A guarded support for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Indo-Pak joint statement came from Congress President Sonia Gandhi today at the party platform. Although Gandhi did not mention anything about the joint statement in her speech at the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) meeting, she hailed the prime minister’s explanatory statement in the Lok Sabha as “firm and unequivocal”.
“No one should have any doubt on our party’s position vis-à-vis Pakistan. It remains unchanged,” Gandhi told her party colleagues after the PM had categorically said in the Lok Sabha that India had not diluted its stand against terrorism or Pakistan in the joint statement in Egypt.
Gandhi also backed the PM’s strong pitch for continuing the dialogue process with Pakistan. “We support the resumption of the dialogue process with Pakistan, but only after it has demonstrated its seriousness to bring perpetrators of Mumbai terror attacks to justice, and to prevent its territory from being used to launch terror attacks on any part of our country.”
On Wednesday, the prime minister said: “I wish to reiterate that the President and the Prime Minister of Pakistan know, after our recent meetings, that we can have a meaningful dialogue with Pakistan only if they fulfil their commitment, in letter and spirit, not to allow their territory to be used in any manner for terrorist activities against India.”
Analysing her speech at the CPP, a senior Congress minister close to Gandhi told Business Standard: “There is a fine distinction between her stand about dialogue with Pakistan and what the PM said yesterday. While the PM said talks can be meaningful only if Pakistan does not allow its territory for terror activities against India, the Congress president has added one more issue that it should demonstrate its seriousness to bring Mumbai culprits to justice. We can say, this is the fine distinction between operational line of the government and the theoretical politics of the party.”
Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi also refused to accept that the PM and the party maintained different line. “It’s all your (media’s) creation. The party and the government are on the same line on this issue (approach towards Pakistan),” he said. Rahul, however, did not reply to why the party remained silent during the last week and did not come out in open support for the PM.
Significantly, Sonia Gandhi didn’t utter a single word on the most controversial part of the statement — Balochistan. While Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee strongly claimed in his intervention on the debate that there was no harm and that the Baloch problem has been there since the 1950s, Sonia remained silent.
Govt drops land acquisition amendments
Bulking under the pressure of coalition politics, the Congress will not try to bring the land acquisition amendments during the current session of Parliament. In her CPP speech today, Sonia Gandhi said that the Rehabilitation and Resettlement policy would be introduced before the House was adjourned. Minister of State for Rural Development Shishir Adhikary told Business Standard: “We have objections against the land acquisition amendments. But we have nothing against the R&R policy.”
