February 03, 2009	Tuesday	Safar 07, 1430

New Delhi, Feb 2: India does not have too many choices other than to patiently wait for Pakistan to respond to the dossier given on Mumbai attacks, Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said on Monday.

“We won’t get anything by simply losing our patience, so hardly we have a choice,” Press Trust of India quoted Mr Mukherjee as saying at a function hosted by CNN-IBN news channel here.

He was asked how long India will wait for Pakistan’s response.

India gave a dossier on the Mumbai attack Jan 5 and has since been waiting for Pakistan to respond officially. Pakistan has referred some questions to New Delhi and said it was investigating the matter and would get back to India with a full report as soon as it was ready.

Queried on his status as a stand-in for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who is unwell, Mr Mukherjee said: “Simply I am discharging duties, neither I am officiating nor acting, neither de jure nor de facto”.

He said under the Constitution of the country, there could be only one prime minister. But “the prime minister can delegate some responsibility to his colleagues and I am doing exactly that”.