NEW DELHI, March 24: Indian opposition leader Lal Kishan Advani has postponed a proposed visit to Pakistan, preferring instead to meet President Gen Pervez Musharraf here who is due on April 16-17 to watch the last India-Pakistan match, his aides said on Thursday. Mr Advani was to go to Pakistan at the invitation of Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri. It was hoped that Mr Advani’s visit, because he is regarded as an anti-Pakistan Hindtuva hawk, would help ease Gen Musharraf’s widely awaited visit to Delhi.

This was all the more important since the president named Mr Advani recently as one of those Hindtuva leaders who subverted the Agra summit in July 2001. Mr Advani denies the charge, saying that inviting Gen Musharraf to Agra was his idea.

The main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party’s upcoming national executive and national council meetings on April 5 and 6 to mark the silver jubilee of its establishment is another reason for the postponement of the proposed visit.