‘Meeting
ground’ must for India, Pak
Tribune
News Service
NEW DELHI, Aug 16 —
The Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, today said
there was a need to find a "meeting ground"
between India and Pakistan and his government would make
efforts in this direction.
Addressing a press
conference here after releasing the common manifesto of
the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), Mr Vajpayee, when
asked about the rigid positions adopted by the two
countries on holding talks, said, "A meeting ground
will have to be found".
The Prime Minister also
said that a decision to sign the CTBT would be taken only
if there was a national consensus. He said even if his
government was voted to power, there was a need to
involve the Opposition in the process. "We are
trying to evolve a national consensus and we want the
Opposition to be a part of this process," he said.
To a question on whether
including the issue in the manifesto and securing the
people’s vote on it would have made things easier,
Mr Vajpayee said despite this he would want the
Opposition to be part of the process.
The Prime Minister
dismissed allegations that the government was going slow
on the Bofors case and said it was awaiting the last set
of papers from the Swiss court. The files are moving and
it was only a question of time before the government got
hold of all the details. Once the papers arrived, the
government would ask the Central Bureau of Investigation
to charge sheet the accused.
On the entry of the
Janata Dal (United) into the NDA and its absence at
today’s function, Mr Vajpayee said the matter was
being discussed and it would be sorted out.
When asked if the Samata
Party leader, Mr George Fernandes, was present at the NDA
meeting as the member of the JD (U), the Union
Information and Broadcasting Minister, Mr Pramod Mahajan,
intervened to clarify that Mr Fernandes was there as the
Convener of the NDA.
On the NDA’s stand
to have a moratorium on contentious issues instead of
burying them, Mr Vajpayee said, "We have taken a
very definitive step. We will wait for further
developments".
The Prime Minister
asserted that the new government would implement the
legislation on debarring people of foreign origin from
holding high offices at the earliest. He said this was
mentioned in the common manifesto.
On the stability of the
coalition government, Mr Vajpayee said after the exit of
the AIADMK, there was stability. "We learn from
experience," he added.
To a question on whom he
considered as his rival candidate so far as the prime
ministership was concerned, Mr Vajpayee said, "Yeh
teda sawal hai (this is not a straight question)".
On the NDA’s
decision to project him as the sole campaigner and
whether Mr Vajpayee would be an issue in the elections,
the Prime Minister said the NDA would project the
performance and its agenda. On the manifesto carrying
only his photographs, Mr Vajpayee jocularly remarked he
would find out from the printers how it happened.
The Prime Minister
emphatically denied that there were "large
scale" incidence of violence in many parts of the
country, including Gujarat. He said, "On the whole,
the communal situation was satisfactory. There were some
localised incidents in Gujarat and the state government
had successfully contained them," he added.
When asked what his
government had done for the socio-economic uplift of the
minorities, Mr Vajpayee said many schemes had been drawn
for the purpose, but the previous governments had not
done enough.
On the presence of the
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister and National Conference
leader, Mr Farooq Abdullah, at the NDA function,
especially in the wake of the BJP fielding candidates
against the NC in Jammu and Kashmir, Mr Vajpayee said Mr
Abdullah was there as an "honoured" guest. He
said the National Conference had all along supported the
NDA government.
|
spotlight
