NEW DELHI, April 19: Indian External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh addressed a rare meeting of the armed forces commanders amid increasing decibels and stepped up diplomatic indiscretions between Islamabad and New Delhi, officials and analysts said.
The hour-long closed door meeting Singh had with the three service chiefs — Gen. S. Padmnabhan, Air Chief Marshal S. Krishnaswamy and Admiral Madhvendera Singh — was all the more curious since Defence Minister George Fernandes, whose turf it should have been, is away on a four-day tour of Gujarat.
Official sources said Singh and the three chiefs exchanged a broad overview of the security scenario facing the country.
The sources said the meeting comes in the wake of military standoff with Pakistan and intelligence inputs of attempts to infiltrate Al-Qaida and Taliban militants into Jammu and Kashmir.
This is perhaps for the first time that an external affairs minister has addressed a combined armed forces commanders conference during which the top brass was also briefed about the policy of the current extended deployment of troops on the borders.
Singh is also believed to have dwelt on the subject of Indian troops becoming more involved in international peacekeeping duties in hostile areas and a much larger interaction of the armed forces with their counterparts in western countries. There has been considerable speculation about India lending military experts to Afghanistan to help set up a regular local security apparatus for Kabul.
Analysts noted that the last time the two countries were engaged in an armed conflict — in the Kargil standoff in 1999 — the government in Delhi was headed by a caretaker administration which was followed by elections that returned Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee for a second term.
So while the good news is that India and Pakistan have never fought a summer war, on the other hand the government of the day is in trouble once again.
And as one opposition analyst said the Vajpayee administration could resort to the old trick of medieval dental surgeons who would scald the sole of the foot with a hot nail to ease the pain from a nagging tooth-ache — a reference to militarism as a way out of domestic difficulties.
Since it began on Monday, Parliament was adjourned on Friday for the fifth consecutive day on the Gujarat issue, which seems to have pushed up the index of opposition unity. All eyes were on the all party meet called by PM Sayeed, Deputy Speaker of Parliament. But this meeting, too, failed to end the impasse.
Vajpayee then dared the Opposition to bring a no-confidence motion against his government on the Narendra Modi issue.
The prime minister used tough words at the meeting. He rejected the opposition charge that the government was shying away from voting on the floor of the House and dared the Opposition to bring a no-confidence motion against his government on the Narendra Modi issue.
What must be worrying the Vajpayee government is the fact that its key allies such as the Telugu Desam Party are sticking to their stand that the deadlock in Parliament will be resolved once Narendra Modi is removed.
Speaking to reporters TDP leader Chandrababu Naidu said: “If the BJP removes the Gujarat leadership, then all problems will be solved.”
Asked if the government was under pressure because of continuous adjournments of both Houses of Parliament as crucial legislative business including passage of Finance Bill and the Railway budget were pending, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan said, the government had time till May 14 to get the Finance Bill and the Railway budget passed by both Houses.
“I have, in the past, seen long adjournments but the opposition has never been non-cooperative on vital financial business. The only loss will be that there will be lesser time for discussion”, he said.
The budget session of Parliament is scheduled to end on May 17.
The government’s problems in parliament are far from over. Jayalalithaa, who has supported the government on virtually every issue in recent months, suddenly did a dramatic turnaround on Thursday morning by saying that Narendra Modi must be removed.
Jayalalithaa’s statement could be a tactical move, designed to keep the NDA guessing, but for the opposition it gives them more ammunition to keep the heat on the government.
Meanwhile, Fernandes on Friday met Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and reviewed the situation in the violence-affected state. Fernandes, who is on a four-day visit to the state, also met senior army and civil officials on Thursday to find out how long the army would be needed in Gujarat since the troops are also required to return to their original beat on the border.