PM's remarks on Vajpayee trigger storm

Everything else about the much-awaited meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George W Bush went off well: Singh did some plain-speaking on the violence in Jammu and Kashmir, telling the US President that Pakistan still controlled the flow of terror into the state.

But a storm broke out in Delhi over the Prime Minister's reported confidence to Bush, that while he thought the Indo-US nuclear agreement would work well, he could not understand why the Opposition at home, specifically former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, had opposed it, especially when Parliament was backing it.

The conversation between the two leaders was about the "landmark" pact signed in July under which the Bush Administration would seek Congress approval to lift curbs on supplies of equipment and fuel for India's civilian nuclear programme subject to New Delhi also fulfilling its commitments, including separating its civilian and military nuclear facilities.

Bush told Singh that he remained committed to the agreement and hoped that he would get the US Congress approval for it. In response, Singh said he had Parliament's backing for the agreement, although he was surprised that his predecessor Vajpayee had been critical of it. This set off a storm of protest in Delhi.

The CPI, an ally of the United Progressive Alliance, criticised the Prime Minister for raising with the US the issue of differences among political parties on the nuclear agreement.

"Who said what or did not say in Parliament or outside it, on all these issues, why should the Prime Minister say anything (to President Bush)," CPI General Secretary AB Bardhan remarked.

"These are our matters. The entire decision has to be ours. We should not do anything at anyone's behest. This has been the stand of the Left," Bardhan said. "Neither does Bush have any right to ask us nor do we need to give him any clarification," the CPI leader said.

Jaswant Singh, former foreign minister and leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, said the manner in which the conversation between the two leaders had been reported suggested that Singh was complaining to Bush about domestic politics.

"This is unfortunate, because the country awaits instead an elaboration of issues discussed, in particular details of the Iran-India pipeline; UN reforms or the domestic opposition to Bush, in the Senate, on the issue of nuclear co-operation with India."

The BJP leader said courtesy and convention demanded that domestic politics not be made a subject of discussion by the Prime Minister when he was abroad.

But Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee defended the Prime Minister's remarks. "Whatever the Prime Minister has said is absolutely correct," Mukherjee told reporters on the sidelines of a seminar here.

The din caused by this event obscured the tone struck by the Prime Minister over Pakistan. Singh told Bush that if peace was to make any real progress, the flow of terror from Pakistan had to stop.

Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf also had an 30-minute meeting with Bush, seeking the US help in the reduction of Indian troops in Kashmir.

Quoted by the Associated Press of Pakistan, Musharraf is reported to have told Bush that a pullout of Indian troops from certain areas, identified by the US Ambassador in Washington, Jahangir Karamat, as Baramula and Kupwara, would be a step towards meaningful progress on Kashmir.

If there was no Indian reciprocity on the key Kashmir issue, all other confidence-building measures would lose their impact, he said.

Musharraf also asked Bush to expedite the process of free trade between the two countries.