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archive: No case at all

No case at all

Editorial
The Pioneer
June 30, 1999


    Title: No case at all
    Author: Editorial
    Publication: The Pioneer
    Date: June 30, 1999
    
    While not rejecting it outright, the Government has done well not to
    be hustled into conceding the demand, made at Monday's all-party
    meeting, for a special session of the Rajya Sabha to discuss the
    intrusion in Kargil. As pointed out earlier in these columns, there is
    absolutely no need for such a session demanded by the Congress and
    most other opposition parties; it can in no way help in accomplishing
    the immediate task at hand, which is throwing out the intruding
    Pakistani Army regulars and the mercenaries trained by them. On the
    contrary, it will only serve to boost the sagging morale of a
    diplomatically isolated Pakistan, and demoralise the Indian fighting
    forces, by projecting the image of an India divided and a campaign
    waged incompetently. That this is most likely to be so becomes clear
    on considering the pronouncements of various opposition leaders which
    leave one in no doubt that they are calling for the session merely to
    embarrass the Government and score political points with the
    forthcoming Lok Sabha elections in mind. To cite only one example,
    addressing a Congress rally at Mau on Monday, no less a person than
    the Congress president, Ms Sonia Gandhi, blamed the BJP Government for
    the large-scale intrusion in Kargil and declared, "We cannot leave the
    fate of the country in the hands of an incompetent caretaker
    Government and hence we (the Congress) have demanded a special session
    of the Rajya Sabha to discuss the prevailing situation on the
    frontier." After this, one will have to be rather dimwitted to believe
    that a Rajya Sabha session to discuss the Kargil issue will do no more
    than record the nation's unified resolve to expel the intruders at all
    cost and stand firmly behind the Armed forces.
    
    There might have been a case for calling a special session of the
    Rajya Sabha had the Government been making a mess of the job of
    clearing intruders. Precisely the opposite is the case. The Indian
    Army has already regained several strategic peaks and ridges in the
    Dras-Kargil-Batalik sector in the teeth of heavy odds, and is poised
    to push the intruders back to the Line of Control (LoC). Indian
    soldiers are now much better armed and equipped than in 1962 when they
    had to fight the numerically vastly superior Chinese with inadequate
    and antiquated weapons and without air support; massive air strikes
    were ordered in the present case as soon as it was felt necessary.
    Whatever residual reasons there might have been for calling a special
    session were removed by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's
    assurance to Monday's all-party meeting that the Government was
    neither making any secret deals with Pakistan nor willing to accept
    any third-party mediation to de-escalate tensions along the LoC.
    Though there was no real need to provide either given the Government's
    public pronouncements on the fighting in Kargil and the diplomatic
    efforts being made to end it, a categorical statement by Mr Vajpayee
    should put to rest whatever misgivings some opposition leaders may
    have genuinely harboured. Such questions as may still remain, or such
    as may arise in the course of the next few days, can be raised at the
    chief ministers' meeting which is to be held in the first week of July
    and in other meetings with the opposition which Mr Vajpayee has
    promised.
    



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