SIMLA: The Congress-League negotiations for the purpose of presenting an agreed list of names for the new Executive Council to the Viceroy made no further progress today [June 27]… It appears that both the parties are sticking to their original position, namely, that the Muslim League claims exclusive right to select all the Muslim Executive Councillors, as it is the only authoritative body which can speak on behalf of the Musalmans of India.

The Congress, on the other hand, sticks to its stand that being a national organisation, it cannot agree to allow itself to be “dubbed” as a Hindu organisation. It cannot therefore agree to select only Hindu members to the Executive Council. In this order of ideas, the Congress has demanded that if there are to be five Muslims on the Executive Council, two must be non-League Nationalist Muslims. Different formulae are reported to have been suggested and discussed but until late tonight no progress was reported.

Meanwhile, the Leaders’ Conference itself has receded, so to say, to the background, giving place to private parleys for the purpose of enabling the two major political parties to come to an agreement.

Published in Dawn, June 28th, 2020