ISLAMABAD: India’s former External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha has maintained that it is unfortunate that the issue of Pakistan is being raised in the elections. Speaking at a meet-the-press programme in Indian city Bhopal, Yashwant Sinha, who had also been Finance Minister of India and top-ranking BJP leader, said that there is no talk about China, which must be feeling happy with the Pakistan rhetoric, claimed the former foreign minister.“This is being done because China’s mention doesn't generate a reaction like that of Pakistan does,” he added. Slamming Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s repeated references to Pakistan while campaigning for the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, former BJP claimed the party is deliberately bringing up Pakistani threats as mentioning China would not arouse the same emotions. “Modi’s 56-inch chest is only for Pakistan and it shrinks to six inches when the Chinese threat is mentioned,” said the former External Affairs Minister, criticising Modi’s foreign policy.To drive home his point on Modi’s faulty foreign policy, the veteran leader invoked late Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, who had written to the United States about the 1998 nuclear tests. Vajpayee then had attempted to ‘de-hyphenate’ India and Pakistan while pushing for Delhi’s right to build a nuclear arsenal. Sinha said Vajpayee’s was an attempt to distinguish between India and Pakistan, indicating to the global community that the nations were not on par with each other.“By invoking Pakistan all the time, prime minister Modi has made the mistake of hyphenating the two nations once again,” said Yashwant Sinha. He revealed that then Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was set to dismiss Narendra Modi as Gujarat chief minister at the time, after the 2002 post-Godhra riots, but withheld the decision as Indian Home Minister LK Advani had threatened to resign from the cabinet on the issue. Dismissed as a non-issue, the controversy over the alleged misuse of INS Viraat by former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.“After the communal riots (massive killing of Muslims) in Gujarat, Atal Behari Vajpayee had decided that then state chief minister Narendra Modi should resign. While going to the national executive committee meeting in Goa in 2002, Atal ji had made up his mind that the Gujarat government would be dismissed if Modi ji refused to resign,” he claimed. “There was a meeting within the party. Advani ji had opposed this (dismissing the Modi government), and he told Atal ji that if Modi ji is dismissed then he (Advani) would resign from the government.So, he (Vajpayee) withheld the decision and Modi ji continued,” Sinha said. In reply to a query on Modi's allegation that late Rajiv Gandhi being prime minister used INS Viraat as a “personal taxi”, Sinha said these are non-issues and that former naval officers had already issued clarifications on it. “It is not as per the dignity of a prime minister to speak lies like this,” Yashwant Sinha said, adding the Lok Sabha polls were being fought on Modi government’s performance and not on the country’s history.Accusing Modi government of playing “mischief” with statistics, Sinha said GDP data during the previous UPA government was higher than during the current NDA government. “The next government will get a broken economy,” the bureaucrat-turned-politician said. Yashwant Sinha blamed Modi for lowering the language of the political discourse. “It is expected from a prime minister to use dignified language but this is not happening.” He said the elections to the Bhopal Lok Sabha seat would determine the future course of country, and whether it wanted to go for social harmony or social divide.
from The News International - National http://bit.ly/2VYUfHZ
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