BJP: No dialogue over dead bodies

The Centre on Thursday accused the BJP of “politicising” the terror attacks in Jammu by asking Prime Minister Manmohan Singh not to hold talks with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif and said the Opposition party too had invited former President Pervez Musharraf after the Kargil war. Defending the Prime Minister’s decision to go ahead with the talks with Mr Sharif, minister of state for home R.P.N. Singh said India will forcefully raise the issue of terror during the bilateral meeting. He also said the terror strikes in Jammu were aimed at derailing the peace initiatives with Pakistan and the Indian government will not allow such elements to be successful in their sinister designs. “BJP has no moral right to criticise the UPA government. When they were in power, even they invited Kargil war architect Musharraf for talks. BJP should not forget that,” he told reporters. His comments came in the wake of BJP president Rajnath Singh accusing the government of pursuing a “spineless” diplomacy and demanding that the Prime Minister should call off his meeting with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif in New York on Sunday in the wake of twin terror strikes. Mr R.P.N. Singh said there were certain people who do not want normalisation of relations between India and Pakistan and whenever any peace initiative is taken, efforts are made to derail it. “It is extremely unfortunate that whenever there is an initiative for peace between India and Pakistan, there are attempts to derail the talks. Today’s terrorist attack is that only. But we do not need to bog down with it,” he said. Condemning the terror strikes in Jammu region, the BJP on Thursday asked the PM whether or not the “nation’s pride” is important to him, urging him to call off his proposed talks with his Pakistani counterpart. BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi questioned whether it was right on the part of the PM to meet his Pakistani counterpart “in an atmosphere where our soldiers are being killed.” Citing US President Barack Obama’s refusal to visit Russia after the latter granted asylum to Edward Snowden, Mr Modi said, “Obama refused to go to Russia as Russia gave asylum to Snowden whom US considered anti-national. This showed Obama’s strength... the nation wants to know — is nation’s pride important or to look nice and show hurry to talk (with Pakistan) your priority ” Senior leader Sushma Swaraj said there should be “no dialogue over dead bodies”, and urged the PM to cancel the proposed talk. The party accused Pakistan of continuing with its strategy to strike at will through proxy war of terror and demanded that Dr Singh should call off the proposed talks with his Pakistani counterpart immediately. BJP chief Rajnath Singh tweeted, “The PM is in a hurry to start dialogue with Pakistan. There should be no talks with Pakistan unless there is a conducive environment.” BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said the Prime Minister had himself assured the nation through both Houses of Parliament after the Mumbai terror attacks and the beheading of two soldiers, that India will not hold talks with Pakistan till it begins cracking down on the terrorist infrastructure on its soil. “But what are we seeing today that Pakistan land is being used to attack and conduct terror attacks in India,” he said. Senior leader Yashwant Sinha maintained that the Prime Minister should not hold talks at all with Mr Sharif. He termed the attack on the Army camp in Samba a “very serious development and extremely disturbing”. “Some people say that this has happened because these terrorists want to derail the talks between India and Pakistan. But my point is who are these terrorists and who are behind these terrorists... There is enough evidence to suggest that with Dawood Ibrahim and Hafiz Saeed roaming free in Pakistan and ISI backing them, these terrorist attacks are carried out with fullest support from Pakistan,” he said.