MUMBAI, SEPT 1: As an indicator of the Bharatiya Janata Party's growing concern on press reports on the intelligence failure in Kargil, the party's national general secretary Venkaiah Naidu on Wednesday riled the Congress for its ``doublespeak'' on the issues of national security.At a meet-the-press programme here, Naidu said the statements of Congress leaders amounted to working against national security and economic considerations.He quoted Arjun Singh's statement in the Congress Working Committee (CWC) on June 23, 1998, when the party had said: ``While the Pokhran tests had established our weapons capability, weaponisation of armed forces remains to be done. This has to be done keeping in view national security and economic considerations.''The Congress party's criticism of the tests now, therefore, reflects their duplicity, Naidu said.The senior BJP leader also said that since the Congress had taken up the challenge of a debate on national security issues, he would like them to account for theloss of over a lakh square km of Indian territory to Pakistan and China since 1947.He also asked the Congress for an account of the loss of 1,157 Indian soldiers who were killed in the IPKF operation in Sri Lanka.While he called the Congress decision to send Indian troops to Sri Lanka ``foolish,'' he evaded a question on what stand his own party had taken during the IPKF mission during 1987-89.
