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'Congress to take own line on summit'

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

Senior Congress leaders Kunwar Natwar Singh and Arjun Singh have successfully convinced party chief Sonia Gandhi that it should adopt an independent line on the visit of Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf, instead of wholly toeing the Vajpayee government's line, a party general secretary clarified on Wednesday.

"The Opposition parties including ours had supported the prime minister on the government's approach towards Musharraf's impending visit when Mr Vajpayee summoned the all-party meeting on it. But these two senior Congress leaders told our party chief that as the principle opposition party, we should make the least possible convergence with the NDA," the senior Congress leader told rediff.com.

He, however, admitted that with the NDA on Wednesday evening deciding to boycott Pakistan high commissioner Ashraf Jahangir Qazi's tea-party in honour of General Musharraf, "it is possible that our leadership might have a re-think on our attending it."

The Congress chief has deputed Natwar Singh, a former external affairs minister and Dr Manmohan Singh, former union finance minister, as the party representatives in the Pakistan high commissioner's tea-party.

While Natwar Singh was not available for comment, Arjun Singh said, "our party chief makes all decisions regarding its policies and programmes. We are only there to assist madam."

That the Congress is unsure about the wisdom of its representatives attending Qazi's tea-party was evident Wednesday when senior Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee admitted that "there is an angularity (to the proposed Musharraf-Hurriyat meeting) which has to be looked into. We have some reservations."

But Mukherjee added, "we may not like the one-to-one meeting between General Musharraf and the Hurriyat leaders but how can we prevent it."

Asked whether the Congress was optimistic about any positive outcome emerging from the Vajpayee-Musharraf summit, he pointed out that "what I feel is that if we can agree to continue the dialogue, that itself will be a positive achievement."

The Samajwadi Party too appeared a little confused following the boycott by the NDA of the high-commissioner's tea-party.

"Why are you people so inquisitive whether we would be attending the tea-party. There is still time and our leadership will have the ultimate say in the matter," Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh told rediff.com.

He ignored when it was pointed out to him that it was his party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav who had vociferously asserted that the opposition parties would boycott the tea-party if the Hurriyat leaders attended it and had a one-to-one meeting with Musharraf.

Indo-Pak Summit 2001: The Complete Coverage

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