Jaswant's amendment rejected

By Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI, JULY 29. The attempt by the External Affairs Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh, to tone down the resolution on the Agra summit met with stiff resistance from the Bharatiya Janata Party's national executive committee yesterday, with the result that an amendment suggested by him was rejected.

The mood of the members of the executive was so strong against Pakistan and its Pakistan President, General Pervez Musharraf, that Mr. Jaswant Singh could not have his way. It seems that Mr. Singh wanted a sentence added at the end of the resolution to say that the party hoped Pakistan would respond positively to the need for peace. But several members would not have it, pointing out that it would negate the strongly-worded resolution which criticised the ``jehadi'' mentality of the Pakistan establishment and stated that the Government should draw ``appropriate conclusions'' if Pakistan continued to adopt a ``negative posture''. After the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, and the Union Home Minister, L. K. Advani, intervened, the Jaswant Singh suggestion was dropped.

The members were also critical of the ``unilateral'' confidence building measures announced by India ahead of the summit and wanted clarifications whether these would be implemented (as announced by Mr. Jaswant Singh at his Agra press conference). Mr. Singh was virtually forced to concede that there could not be unilateral implementation of establishing more entry points for visiting Pakistanis.

In fact, the very announcement that India was willing to establish more check-points for Pakistanis wishing to travel to this country (including one on the Rajasthan-Pakistan border) was criticised by the former Rajasthan Chief Minister, Mr. Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, who said if it was done ``Rajasthan would become another Kashmir''.

Other members charged that the summit had allowed General Musharraf to come here, walk all over his guests, insult them in every possible way and walk away.

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