Congress Criticises Gujral Over Pakistan Policy

Congress General Secretary Madhavrao Scindia yesterday strongly criticised the way Prime Minsiter I K Gujral was compromising the countrys self-respect through his conduct with regard to Indo-Pak relations and his slated meeting with US President Bill Clinton next week.

Scindia said the party might make a formal statement in a day or two.

The attack is significant because Congress President Sitaram Kesri has projected Scindia as his voice since the Golden Jubilee discussion in the Lok Sabha in which Scindia was the partys main speaker. Kesri has hitherto been soft on Gujral personally, even when he has criticised the United Front.

Talking to reporters, Scindia expressed unhappiness over the way the Indian government went about adjusting its slot for Gujrals address to the United Nations General Assembly to suit Clintons conveniece. This entire business of swapping a time slot with a third world country to make time available for a meeting with Clinton is ridiculous, he said.

The government seems to have forgotten that India is the largest democracy in the world and that he is the prime minister of over nine million people. India is also a major market.

Indias situation had improved since the early days of Congress Prime Minsiter P V Narasimha Rao, when the country had virtually no foreign exchange reserves, he said. The situation had reversed now and India had foreign exchange reserves of over US $ 30 billion.

The Congress leader was also upset over the way India lost an opportunity to win the goodwill of Indonesia and ensure some investment and trade from that country by not taking the initiative to support its sinking currency.

With a foreign exchange reserve of US $ 30 billion, what was wrong in pledging around US $ 7-8 billion to prop up the Indonesian currency, like Singapore and other countries did, Scindia asked.