New Delhi: The Congress on Friday criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Lahore, saying the ruling BJP had replaced seasoned diplomats with businessmen to achieve its foreign policy goals.
“Has Prime Minister Narendra Modi and [External Affairs Minister] Sushma Swaraj earlier, when she went for the Heart of Asia conference in Islamabad, safeguarded and upheld India’s interests and India’s policy vis-à-vis the Taliban and the terror strikes to destabilise Afghanistan,” asked senior leader Anand Sharma at a press briefing.
“There is a very clear linkage in coming from Kabul to Lahore. The Prime Minister has compromised and surrendered to take personal interests forward,” he said.
Mr. Sharma’s remark was full of suspicion that the Prime Minister seemed to be favouring oligarchy over diplomacy and trading the long-term national interest for short-term business deals.
“It is now in the public domain that he used vested private business interests for a secret meeting with [Pakistan Prime Minister] Nawaz Sharif in Khatmandu, and the same channel he has used for the meeting in Lahore. The concerned industrialist who has a business partnership with the ruling establishment in Pakistan was there for the last two days. This has come out in the open,” he said.
(Agencies)
