NDA slams handling of Sarabjit,China issues,meets President

Opposition NDA on Friday opened a new front against the UPA government over the visible drift in management of foreign relations in the context of the death of Sarabjit Singh and the Chinese incursion in eastern Ladakh.

Opposition NDA on Friday opened a new front against the UPA government over the visible drift in management of foreign relations in the context of the death of Sarabjit Singh and the Chinese incursion in eastern Ladakh. Its top leadership met President Pranab Mukherjee and argued the government owes an apology for not ensuring the safe return of Singh and termed as unacceptable the handling of the Chinese aggression.

A teams of senior leaders including L K Advani,NDA convenor Sharad Yadav,BJP chief Rajnath Singh and opposition leaders Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj handed over a petition to the President,saying the silent acquiescence of the government in the face of fait-accompli,whether of Pakistan,or China is unforgivable pusillanimity. Terming it as simply not acceptable, it said the government must govern,or it must go.

In their memorandum,they argued that the UPA governments continued assertion that the Chinese incursion was a localised incident amounted to a disingenuous evasion of governments responsibility.

They urged the President to discuss these issues with the government and direct it to take appropriate action. The BJP chief told Mukherjee that External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid should cancel his visit to China on May 9.

On Sarabjit,Advani said the murder could not have taken place without official connivance. He had reportedly completed his sentence and received a condonation of his death sentence,as its execution had been delayed for too long. We are given to understand he was due to be released but held back in Pakistan as a retaliatory gesture.

The NDA petition alleged government inaction in ensuring his safe return. We are persuaded to emphasise this because we hold that our governments inaction in this case cannot be condoned. They owe the country an explanation and an apology.

Regarding China,it said the breach cannot be viewed as normal conduct and slammed the government for describing it as a localised incident. Even if localised8230;,this manner of unilateral localised actions,resulting in seizure of land,amounts to giving a forcible and physical definition to the LAC. This cannot be accepted.