Congress president Sonia Gandhi today said that there were ‘‘serious moves afoot to agree to the US request’’ for sending Indian troops to Iraq by the BJP-led Government.Addressing the Congress Parliamentary Party general body meeting, Sonia said, ‘‘our firm stand on the issue of sending Indian troops to Iraq has finally been vindicated’’, reiterating the party’s stand that ‘‘Indian troops should not be sent except under UN command or as part of a multinational peacekeeping force under an explicit UN mandate.’’Sonia also indicated that the Congress would continue to pursue the issue of the dropping of charges against L.K. Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and others in the Babri Masjid demolition case.She stated that the two ministers ‘‘are being let off the hook through the misuse of the investigating agencies and resort to legalistic devices.’’In the context of the Prime Minister’s China visit recently, she stated: ‘‘It is claimed that his visit to China in February 1979 was a landmark one. Nothing could be farther from the truth.’’‘‘He (Vajpayee) had cut short his visit on account of developments on the Sino-Vietnamese border,’’ she stated, adding that a ‘‘paradigm shift’’ in the Sino-Indian relations occurred when Rajiv Gandhi visited China in December 1988.‘‘It is also gratifying that four decades after castigating Jawaharlal Nehru, Vajpayee rediscovered him in Beijing while reaffirming India’s commitment to Panchsheel,’’ she added.
