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BJP takes on Congress, CPIM, for opposing Advani's warning to Pak

The Bharatiya Janata Party today trained its guns at the Congress party and the Communist Party of India-Marxist for criticising Home Minister L K Advani's warning in ''unambiguous terms'' to stop sending terrorists across the border.

Party spokesman K L Sharma, in a statement issued in New Delhi today, said all previous governments at the Centre had opted for a soft line towards Pakistan, which gave a wrong signal and encouraged anti-India activities from across the border.

He said the BJP-led government has decided to draw the 'Lakshman Rekha' and put an end to the Pakistani menace, and the home minister had done the right thing with his statement.

It was very strange that the Congress, which was now criticising the government for it, had perhaps forgotten that it was their late leader Rajiv Gandhi who said at a public rally that he would ''teach such a lesson to Pakistan ki uski naani yaad aajayegi.''

He said the BJP-led government wanted friendly relations with all neighbours on a mutual respect basis.

The world must reconcile itself to the fact that India was now a nuclear ''superpower'' which should get its due share. This could be possible only by giving permanent membership to India on the United Nations Security Council, along with the other five superpowers, the BJP spokesman said.

Meanwhile, the Congress today cautioned the government that any effort to drift away from the Shimla agreement in settling Indo-Pak disputes would make India's position weak.

Congress spokesman Salman Khurshid said any repudiation of the Shimla agreement signed in 1974 by prime ministers Indira Gandhi and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto could open up another opportunity for Pakistan to renege on the bilateral commitment. Both countries were bound by the agreement, but any violation by India would give a lever for international intervention.

In an obvious reference to Advani's threat to quell the terrorist training bases militarily, Khurshid said it would tantamount to violating the Shimla agreement. The agreement provided for solution only through diplomatic and political means bilaterally. ''Let Advani spend a little more time studying recent history,'' he advised.

The Congress spokesperson, who had handled the foreign affairs ministry in the Narasimha Rao government, said BJP ministers should realise that international relations were different from municipal body politics. ''Provocation, paranoia and press conferences cannot be a substitute for a policy,'' he said.

Khurshid said though the Shimla agreement did have certain flaws, it should still be used as a basis for a final solution on the Kashmir tangle.

He accused the BJP ministers of singing in different tunes. This would confuse the nation, he said.

UNI

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