Targeting the Bharatiya Janataya Party (BJP) government in the Centre, veteran Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar asked if India could carry out surgical strikes in Pakistan, then why cannot it hold talks with the neighbouring country to resolve the long-pending Kashmir issues?
Speaking during a session at the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF), the former Union Minister asserted that a solution to diplomatic issues between India and Pakistan can only emerge through dialogue.
“I had talked to former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf regarding Kashmir. He had four important suggestions for a solution to the Kashmir issue. I don’t know why this issue was not discussed. I do not understand India’s policy towards Pakistan. We can carry out surgical strikes, but we can’t sit and talk. There have been no talks between India and Pakistan since 2014,” he said.
Aiyar said that perhaps there was some conversation between National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval and Pakistan’s Qamar Javed Bajwa. “They perhaps reached the decision that there should be no firing as per the ceasefire deal,” he said
“However, a solution will emerge only when India and Pakistan hold talks with each other. If we don’t talk, how will we find a solution? The government says terrorism and talks cannot happen together. I want to ask, talks are not happening for sometime now… Has this stopped terrorism in the last 10 years,” Aiyar further asked.
The Congress leader also talked about Sonia Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi.
“Some people had suggested me to write my autobiography. So I thought what have been the achievements in my life that people would like to read about me. Then Sonia Gandhi also told me that I should write. Then I came to know that she did not want me to engage in political life,” he said
“I felt that Sonia Gandhi did not want me to stay in politics,” the veteran politician added.
Aiyar was recently in the news after his daughter, Suranya Aiyar, faced backlash from the residents’ welfare association of the colony where her father lives for her protest fast against the consecration ceremony at Ram Mandir in Ayodhya.
The RWA demands an apology from the father-daughter duo or asks them to move out. Suranya denied living in the mentioned colony and refused to comment further.
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