Left flays BJP for anti-Pak stand, says talks should continue

New Delhi, Oct 18 (UNI) The Left parties today flayed the BJP for trying to ''vitiate the atmosphere with its anti-Pakistan stand'' and asked the UPA government to stick to its decision to resume the Indo-Pak dialogue process to fulfil the aspirations of the people of the two countries.

The CPI, CPI(M) and Forward Bloc also came down heavily on the BJP's defence of former union minister George Fernandes, who has been chargesheeted by the CBI in the Barak defence deal.

BJP president Rajnath Singh has demanded that the Congress-led ruling coalition consider scrapping diplomatic ties with Pakistan if Islamabad did not check cross border terrorism and Party General Secretary Arun Jaitley had challenged the government to produce any evidence against Mr Fernandes.

''It appears that the BJP leadership particularly party president Rajnath Singh and his predecessor L K Advani are competing to demonstrate who is more anti-Pakistan. Since the Havana declaration in which both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf agreed to set up a joint mechanism to counter terrorism, the BJP is out to spoil the atmosphere between the two countries,'' CPI leaders A B Bardhan and Shamim Faizi said.

The Left leaders' remarks follow the Centre's decision to resume the Indo-Pak composite dialogue with the announcement of Foreign Secretary-level talks from November 13-15.

On the BJP's defence of Mr Fernandes, Mr Bardhan said, ''the BJP, which is devoid of any issue and is under a cloud on several matters including the debate on the trial of Afzal Guru, is making a frantic bid to divert the people's attention.'' Mr Faizi, who is the party Weekly New Age editor, said BJP General Secretary Arun Jaitley should know that a clean chit could not be issued to Mr Fernandes till the trial was over as he was a lawyer.

''He( Mr Jaitley) is free to appear as defence counsel for the NDA convener following the chargesheet filed by the CBI,'' the CPI leaders said.

CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and Rajya Sabha member Brinda Karat said the government should seriously follow the investigation into the Barak deal.

Stating that the issue could not be solved through a media trial, the CPI(M) leader stressed that the government must order a proper probe to ascertain the truth.

''Besides, all the parties involved in the deal should be blacklisted and the guilty brought to book,'' she added.

On the BJP's demand to reconsider maintaining diplomatic ties with Pakistan, Forward Bloc National Secretary G Devrajan emphasised that it was not a prudent approach. ''We must continue the dialogue with Pakistan. During the foreign secretary-level talks, the government should produce all the documents related to Islamabad's involvement in terrorist activities in our country.'' Stating that the diologue process was part of confidence building measures, Mr Devrajan said the BJP's suggestion did not merit any consideraiton. ''Even after the Kargil conflict, the BJP-led NDA government had initiated confidence building steps,'' he added.

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