Congress: Modi ruining India’s case

The main Opposition, Congress, launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, accusing him of “ruining” India’s case on Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK) by raking up the issue of Balochistan in his Independence Day address.

“PoK is our right. Our entitlement. We will support it. But by bringing in Balochistan, you are ruining our case. We are going to ruin our own case on PoK,” Congress leader and former external affairs minister Salman Khurshid said.

This would give an “additional handle” to Pakistan to target India as “we don’t speak about atrocities in neighbouring countries,” he told reporters at the Congress headquarters here.

Disapproving the “wild pronouncements about Balochistan,” he said that the government should ensure that its borders are secured and people are safe.

“I do not know who advised the Prime Minister for raising Balochistan. It will dilute our claim on PoK. It will give additional handle ... to interfere in our internal affairs.”

Suggesting that Mr Modi should learn from former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on foreign policy, Mr Khurshid said, “Balochistan is a different kettle altogether. We have no business (there).”

He said the problem with Mr Modi, who speaks of “56-inch chest,” was that he “talks too much and does very little. In modern times, we have to act with brains.”

Mr Khurshid said that Mr Modi’s speech was not like a Prime Minister addressing the nation on a national day but as a politician during an election campaign. In his address from the ramparts of the Red Fort on the occasion of the 70th Independence Day, Mr Modi talked about the situation in PoK, Gilgit and Balochistan and said people from there have thanked him for raising their issues.

Meanwhile, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi said freedom can never be for the few and asked Indians to aspire for a country where ideas are not “crushed violently” by the forces of hate and mediocrity. His statement came against the backdrop of recent attacks on the dalits.

“When the forces of darkness threaten this liberty for some of us, as we saw in recent times, we must remember that freedom can never be for the few — it has to be for everyone. Every human being in India has the right to dignity and the freedom to live and express themselves freely,” he said in a message on Independence Day.

Mr Gandhi said that Indians are honour-bound to aspire to a country where nobody lives in fear and “where ideas flow freely and are not crushed violently by the forces of hate and mediocrity. We must insist and fight for this truth, at all times.”

Mr Gandhi hoisted the national flag at the party headquarters here for the first time since he took over as the Congress vice president three years ago.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who usually hoists the tricolour at the party office, was on Sunday discharged from a private hospital. Senior party leaders including former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, A K Antony, Ghulam Nabi Azad and others were present on the occasion.