Manmohan Singh hosted a lunch for BJP leaders Atal Bihari Vajpayee, LK Advani, Jaswant Singh, and Brajesh Mishra.
PM serves lunch to BJP bosses to help them stomach peace talks with Pakistan
NEW DELHI: With Pakistan on his mind, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh hosted a New Year lunch for BJP leaders Atal Bihari Vajpayee, LK Advani, Jaswant Singh, and Brajesh Mishra on Tuesday.
Those around the table were sworn to secrecy not to divulge details of the discussions, but the rest of the guest list let the cat out of the bag.
Also present at the lunch were External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, National Security Adviser MK Narayanan, and the PM’s special envoy for Pakistan, SK Lambah. Lambah’s presence was a pointer to the fact that Pakistan was the main item on the menu.
Having sewn up the Indo-US nuclear deal with the passage of the enabling legislation in the US Congress, the PM has turned his attention to Pakistan. A source in the PMO, who wished to remain unidentified, said the PM is keen to make a trip to Islamabad sooner than later this year and aides on both sides are working hard to hammer out an agreement on one of the outstanding bilateral disputes to showcase the progress of the Indo-Pak peace process.
It is against this backdrop that the PM decided to host a lunch for the BJP top brass and took the unusual step of inviting each one personally on the phone. While details of the discussions at the lunch table are sketchy, it is obvious that the PM is keen to enlist the support of the main opposition party for his Pakistan initiative.
Mukherjee is scheduled to visit Islamabad on January 13-14 to invite President Pervez Musharraf for the summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation in New Delhi on April 3-4. But the hidden purpose is to prepare the ground for a visit by the PM, if possible before the SAARC meet.
It is not clear yet what would form the showpiece of the PM’s trip, if it materialises.
The most doable agreement, according to an official source, is on the Sir Creek dispute. But over the past many months, India and Pakistan have also had substantive talks on Kashmir with discussions focussing on ways to ‘soften’ the Line of Control and facilitate movement across it.
Significantly, Lambah met the BJP leaders ahead of Tuesday’s lunch to brief them on the substance of his secret talks with his Pakistani counterpart, Talat Aziz. Lambah’s briefing was followed up a couple of days later by a visit by Pakistan’s new high commissioner for India, Shahid Malik, who gave the BJP leaders Islamabad’s perspective.
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