NaMo’s track II? sends emissaries to Islamabad

ISLAMABAD: Officials in Pakistan are tight-lipped about a report that appeared in The Hindu newspaper that the Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi has despatched a few close associates to Pakistan to meet government officials and politicians from Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N. But the fact that it was not denied outright has given weightage to the idea that despite Modi’s anti- Muslim public image, behind the scenes there might be quite another script unravelling, hidden from the public glare. 

Mariana Baabar writes that while those that The News spoke to in Islamabad did not deny the report outright, they were not willing to come on record either, except to hint that no high-level official met with the visiting BJP politicians nor were names of these Indians disclosed.

Indian sources in New Delhi confirmed to The News that some BJP politicians had indeed applied for Pakistani visas. Three Pakistani officials also confirmed that meetings did take place with junior-level officials and with PML-N politicians. But they said this is a common practice between the two neighbours.

One official source said Pakistan has its own importance and Indian hopefuls would try to reach out, but Islamabad was adopting a wait and watch approach as the election process is still underway in India and results are still awaited.

Mariana Baabar quotes an interview of Pakistan’s High Commissioner in New Delhi, Abdul Basit which appeared in the Urdu newspaper, Amar Ujala, in India, on Monday, 21 April, 2014, in which he says, regardless of which party or coalition forms the next government in India, Pakistan is looking forward to engaging with it comprehensively and meaningfully.

“Let’s wait for May 16 to know who will form the next government. As I said earlier, we need to build on the bilateral progress made so far. We hope the next government in India would be forthcoming and willing to move decisively towards attaining a viable peace. The new government in India would not find Pakistan wanting in this regard,” Basit said.

According to the report in The News, the Pakistan government may be keeping the meetings secret because “Modi is hardly popular and is seen mostly as a Hindu fundamentalist, anti-Muslim and responsible for the massacre of thousands of Muslims during the Gujarat riots a few years ago. In fact, his record of negating human rights time and again saw the United States refusing him a visa and many European countries refusing to shake hands with him.” 

Interestingly it says that even in the past as Nawaz Sharif swept last May’s elections and was waiting to be elected Leader of the House, “Prime Minister Manmohan Singh sent several emissaries to Raiwind in undue haste.”

In this case, Mariana Baabar writes, the BJP has not only sent emissaries to Pakistan but has also tried recently to reach out to a Kashmiri Hurriyat leader like Syed Ali Shah Geelani. Sanjay Saraf is a Kashmiri Pandit whose Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party in Jammu and Kashmir is allied with the BJP.

Sanjay Saraf told PTI however, that he met with Geelani to inquire after him and that the meeting was being reported out of context.

Meanwhile, The News also talks about the incendiary statements made by Senior BJP leader Giriraj Singh on Saturday in Jharkhand where he threatened to send those who opposed his leader Narendra Modi packing to Pakistan- a view he unapologetically reiterated to PTI later: “I stand by my statement that those trying their best to stop Modi from coming to power have no place in India and should go to Pakistan whose interests these Modi-haters have sought to espouse by opposing him in the polls.” 

However, senior Bihar BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi termed the statement “irresponsible” and said the party does not approve of it. “The BJP doesn’t approve of the irresponsible statement given by Giriraj Singh,” he tweeted. 

But mockingly, Mariana Baabar adds that for an Indian, entering Pakistan can be quite a task. She says, perhaps someone who has experience of acquiring and extending a Pakistani visa is Rezaul Hasan Lashkar former PTI correspondent in Islamabad, who tweeted, “I hope Giriraj Singh knows how difficult it is for Indians to get Pakistani visas”.

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