Disappointing, says Congress

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, AUG. 7. The Congress today expressed dissatisfaction with the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee's statement on the Agra summit. ``His remarks were disappointing, there was nothing substantive, and the nation is none the wiser,'' said Mr. Natwar Singh, CWC member and head of the AICC's Foreign Affairs Department.

The Government's explanation of the events that took place in Agra appeared to have left Mr. Singh unimpressed. He criticised the Government's attitude during the run-up to the summit and the explanations offered now. ``The attempts by Mr. Vajpayee and Mr. Jaswant Singh to sell the idea that they had an agenda and were well-prepared has convinced nobody,'' the Congress leader said.

The former External Affairs Minister also sought to join issue with Mr. Vajpayee for suggesting that none of the Opposition parties had suggested calling off the talks if Pakistan did not agree to an agenda. ``He called us for consultations merely 36 hours before the General was to arrive and to say now that we were wrong in not suggesting that the talks be called off is extraordinary,'' he said.

The CWC member also did not buy the Government's explanation that it had prepared itself thoroughly for the summit.

``The fact of the matter is that they were totally unprepared and now they are blaming others for it.'' He conceded that his party had supported the idea of talks but it did not mean the Government should go unprepared.

The absence of a well-prepared agenda had allowed Gen. Musharraf to get away, Mr. Singh said and felt the Government should have pinned down Pakistan on cross-border terrorism, the nuclear issue and CBMs.

He also did not agree with the Government that the talks had fallen through because of Pakistan's insistence on Kashmir being the core issue. ``This is an afterthought and a case of being wise after the event.'' On the External Affairs Minister's suggestion that the preparation for the Agra summit was better than for previous meetings, he said, ``how much does he know of the past, Rajiv Gandhi prepared for a year before he went to China.''

The Congress leader was not satisfied with the Prime Minister and Mr. Jaswant Singh conceding that there had been a media mismanagement, saying ``that's not good enough.''

The Prime Minister should have invited the Pakistani mediapersons for a breakfast meeting and then televised it over Doordarshan, he felt.

He was also not convinced by Mr. Jaswant Singh's interpretation of the events and made it clear that the latter's statement in the Lok Sabha yesterday ``had skirted all the major issues. It was a long-winded explanation for a series of failures of substance and management at Agra.''

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