NEW DELHI: Prime Minister P.V.Narasimha Rao will shortly convene an al party meeting to formulate a “definite policy” on Kashmir.
Narasimha Rao gave his assurance to the all-party delegation which called on him on Oct.31 after a three day visit to the Kashmir Valley BJP National Secretary M. Khurana and Vice President K.L Sharma were the BJP representatives on the delegation.
The two BJP leaders said the Prime Minister had assured the delegation that first he would initiate dialogue with various political parties in the coming days and then all-party meeting would be convened.
Khurana and Sharma said the 19member delegation which visited the Valley was unanimous that the time was not ripe for elections in the State and that this “unanimous view” had been conveyed to the Prime Minister and later to the Home Minister.
The delegation which had representatives from 12 political parties was led by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and was with the Prime Minister for more than one and a half hour before calling on Home Minister S.B Chavan.
Besides the ruling Congress and the BJP it had representatives from Janata Dal CPIM CPI Telugu Desam AIADMK SJP RSP and some other parties. A formal report of the delegations visit to the Valley is yet to be submitted.
The BJP leaders said besides being unanimous about the inadvisability of early elections the all-party delegation was also of the “consensus view” that pressure should be maintained on the militants and concerted efforts made to redeem the grievances of people.
Sharma said these “unanimous and consensus” views of the delegation had been conveyed both to the Prime Minister and the Home Minister. Fifteen of the 19 members in the delegation called on Rao and Chavan.
Sharma said the delegations visit was very “useful” and it was for the first time that all political parties had been able to study the ground realities in the Valley and arrive at the conclusion that the people there were disillusioned and disenchanted with the militants and Pakistan whose hand was clearly visible in the subversive activities.
Khurana said the BJP had on its part impressed upon the Prime Minister that the migrants should also be made a party to any discussion on talks on the Kashmir problem.
The Opposition members in the delegation included Madan Lal Khurana Kishen Lal Sharma and J.P.Mathur (BJP) SrikantJenaand Nitish Kumar (JD) Saifuddin Chowdhary Hanan Mollah M.A Baby (CPM) Bhogendera Jha (CPI) Lal Jan Basha (TDP) G. Swaminathan (AIADMK) S. Lather (SJP) Piyush Thrkey (RSP) P. Upendera and Rasheed Masood both independents.
The BJP told the Prime Minister that the time was also not ripe for holding talks with the militants.
Pressure should be maintained on the militants for some more time and talks held only when they came to the negotiating table on the terms of the Government and not on their own terms Khurana said.
He said in spite of an improvement in the situation and peoples disillusionment with the militants “a pro-India atmosphere” was still not discernible.
The delegation also impressed upon the Prime Minister foreign arms and foreign money misuse of Indian money and the local Urdu press’s role in glorifying the militants was mainly responsible for the situation in the valley.
Khurana said the sway the militant’s still held was evident from the fact that many officers boycotted the visit of the all-party delegation.
Khurana said many a times the security forces involved in anti-insurgency operations in the valley got adverse publicity even in situations which were unavoidable.
Article extracted from this publication >> November 13, 1992
