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Congress to attend Qazi's tea party

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

Senior Congress politician Pranab Mukherjee said on Thursday that the party would be represented at the 'high tea' hosted by Pakistani High Commissioner in India Ashraf Jehangir Qazi in a "token capacity".

Briefing reporters on the outcome of the meeting between a five-member Congress delegation, led by party president Sonia Gandhi, and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Mukherjee said those who had been invited from the Congress to Qazi's tea party would attend. He could not, however, say who from the Congress had been invited.

He said the Congress had never supported a meeting between Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf and leaders of the separatist All-Parties Hurriyat Conference. "When India and Pakistan are discussing bilateral issues, we don't want the interference of any third party," he remarked.

The other Congress politicians in the delegation were K Natwar Singh, Dr Manmohan Singh and Madhavrao Scindia.

Mukherjee said the delegation had a 15-minute discussion with the prime minister at which Union Home Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani and External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh were also present.

He said Vajpayee gave them the background of the Agra summit and said all outstanding issues between the neighbours, including political, economic and nuclear issues, would be discussed.

He said Vajpayee and General Musharraf would decide the agenda of the summit at their first meeting on Sunday morning.

Mukherjee said the government told the Congress that it would go strictly by protocol on attending Qazi's tea party.

Earlier, senior Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Harkishen Singh Surjeet told rediff.com that his party had not boycotted Qazi's tea party, though whether it would attend was a non-issue.

Surjeet pointed out that the Hurriyat itself was split on the issue of attending the party, but the media had not focussed on it.

Indo-Pak Summit 2001: The Complete Coverage

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