LAHORE: Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Jaswant Singh has said he would not defend his governments decision to mobilise troops along the India-Pakistan border following the December 13, 2001 attack on parliament.
Well, I would certainly not defend Operation Parakram, Singh, who served as both external affairs and finance minister under prime minister Vajpayee, told the weekly Outlook magazine. This is the first time the BJP leader, now leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha, has hinted that there were differences of opinion over the 2001 troop build-up that nearly brought India and Pakistan to war.
His comments follow upon External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjees statement that the present government had succeeded in obtaining Pakistans admission of its soil being used to plan the terror attacks in Mumbai in 2008 without resorting to troop deployment, a reference to Operation Parakram.
However, Singh refused to be drawn into comparing the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) governments response to the parliament attack with the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) governments response to the Mumbai attacks. However, he noted that Islamabad had only relented on its soil having been used to plan the attacks following a visit from US special envoy Richard Holbrooke. ... It would be a great error on our part to put it on the credit side for India, he added. However, he added, he believed that the Mumbai attacks could not have been staged without some help from within India.
