NEW DELHI - India’s opposition lawmakers staged a walk-out from Parliament Thursday after two days of intense debate on an India-Pakistan joint statement.
The joint statement - issued after a recent meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart, Yousuf Raza Gilani - had said action on terrorism should not be linked to bilateral talks between India and Pakistan.
India had stalled its five-year dialogue with Pakistan after the Mumbai terrorist attack in November and said it would not be resumed until Pakistan took action against terrorists and planners based in the neighbouring country who New Delhi claimed were responsible for the attack.
Opposition parties claimed the joint statement was a turnaround on India’s foreign policy and a departure from the usual cross-party consensus and consultations on major foreign policy decisions.
Government officials denied the criticism, but the opposition said that denial and the government’s other clarifications were inadequate.
Lawmakers particularly objected to the inclusion of a reference to Pakistan’s concern on the situation in Balochistan in the joint statement, which they said could imply possible Indian involvement.
Singh, intervening in the debate Wednesday, said there had been no dilution of national consensus and that there was no alternative but to talk to Pakistan.
‘Neither have we succumbed to terrorism nor will we stop talking,’ Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who held the foreign affairs portfolio during the Mumbai attack, said during the debate Thursday.
Mukherjee reminded Parliament that governments led by both the Indian National Congress party, which heads the current coalition government, and the now opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had continued talking to Pakistan for a decade despite brief disruptions after terrorist attacks.
‘We can’t erase Pakistan. It’s going to exist. War is no solution,’ Mukherjee said.
Mukherjee also defended the reference to Balochistan, saying it was a unilateral reference. ‘The perception of Pakistan is not shared by us,’ he said.
As Foreign Minister SM Krishna attempted to reiterate the government’s position, BJP leader LK Advani led his party lawmakers out of the house, saying, ‘There was no satisfactory response. There is no point in this discussion.’
At a separate meeting of Congress party lawmakers, party president Sonia Gandhi backed Singh and said there should be no confusion over the party’s or government’s stand.
India’s Pakistan policy had not changed, she said. ‘Till Pakistan shows concrete steps on the anti-terror front, there is no point of dialogue,’ she told the Congress Parliamentary Party meeting.
India claims terrorists and a militant group based in Pakistan planned and executed the attack on Mumbai, in which 166 people were killed.
Nuclear-capable South Asian neighbours India and Pakistan have a long history of troubled relations and have fought three wars, two of them over the disputed Kashmir region.