Enthused by Pakistan?s admission last week that part of the Mumbai terror plot was planned on its soil, the Congress may add it to the finishing touches to its campaign for the Lok Sabha polls, billing Islamabad?s U-turn as a major ?achievement? of the UPA government and painting the BJP-led NDA as the underachiever on national security.
Hoping that the development will curb the BJP in the tightening Lok Sabha contest, the party will attempt to use Pakistan?s confession to its advantage. ?We will launch an aggressive campaign on this achievement of the UPA government,? AICC media chairperson Veerappa Moily told FE on Sunday. ?We will organise programmes and rallies where we will inform the people that we are taking the war against terror to its logical conclusion,? he added.
The Congress thinks it has finally got an edge in countering the BJP charge that the UPA has failed to effectively take on Pakistan on the issue of cross-border terrorism. ?After 60 years, it is for the first time that Islamabad has confessed that the source of terrorism is Pakistan,? Moily said. ?They may say the plot was also planned in other countries, but then all the terrorists are from Pakistan. This much has been admitted by them?. He pointed out that the NDA, in the aftermath of the attack on Parliament, had lined up the army on the border and spent Rs 8000 crore, yet failed to yield results.
Moily contends that it was the UPA government which was able to not only bring about national consensus but even get world opinion ranged against Pakistan. ?When Parliament was attacked, the entire world was not with India. But after the Mumbai attacks, all countries are endorsing our stand?.
The BJP, however, dismisses the euphoria in the UPA, maintaining that the latest Pakistani response is of no significance and that it will not alter the party?s campaign on terror in the run-up to polls. ?It is only an attempt to divert attention in the face of American pressure,? says SK Arora, former foreign service officer and convenor of the BJP?s external affairs cell. ?Pakistani policy towards India will remain the same. Cross-border terrorism is unlikely to end,? he maintains, saying that the only thing Pakistan has done is to ask 30 more questions from India.
The political resolution of the BJP at Nagpur, in fact, made it clear that it will focus its campaign on the UPA?s ?soft? approach on terrorism, which it alleged is because of the Congress?s ?votebank politics?. Challenging the UPA to take stringent action, it said: ?The BJP would be supportive of the measures which the government may be required to take but under no circumstances whatsoever the terrorist, their handlers and their patrons in the Pakistani establishment should be spared. The BJP demands that all those responsible for this attack as also those who conspired in and abetted it must be deported to India to face trial and the government must not spare any strong measure in this regard.?
BJP leader SS Ahluwalia, the party?s chief whip in the Rajya Sabha, has charged the Congress with misleading the nation on the issue. ?The Congress is trying to lead the country up the garden path. Filing an FIR is no action as Pakistan is taking action only under compulsion. They are in a catch-22 situation as they are under pressure from the United States as well as the Taliban. Pakistan is doing it merely to show that it is doing something,? he said. He contends that India will have to be wary of Pakistan?s latest move.
?Pakistan is laying a trap and if we fall into it, we will reach a point of no return. The government should not be at ease till people who have been charged are handed over to India. That is the threshold point?, he said, adding that the BJP?s agenda of national security will remain the party?s top priority.