By IANS,
New Delhi : Members of India’s main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) walked out of the Lok Sabha Friday to protest Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s “capitulation” to Pakistan though they agreed to a parliament debate over the issue.
Soon after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh read out in the Lok Sabha a statement on his meeting with his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt Friday, Leader of Opposition L.K. Advani said: “You have delinked terrorism and the composite dialogue. Why have you taken seven months to decide on this?”
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who served as foreign minister earlier, replied: “If the opposition wants, we can have a structured discussion. There is no provision in this house to seek clarification from the prime minister on his statement.”
Advani responded: “We will have a structured debate, but as a mark of protest I would like my party to walk out to this capitulation.” And the BJP members then marched out of the house.
The leader of opposition alleged that India had surrendered to Pakistan’s insistence that action against terror groups should not be linked to the resumption of the dialogue process.
Manmohan Singh gave a summary of his visit to France and then to Egypt for the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit, and said that “meaningful dialogue” with Pakistan will depend on Islamabad fulfilling its promise to act against the perpetrators of the 26/11 Mumbai terror strikes.