BJP’s Lok Sabha MP Varun Gandhi has come out strongly in support of the Land Boundary Agreement India signed with Bangladesh and the Teesta water sharing deal that Manmohan Singh had to back off from.
Gandhi, grandson of Indira Gandhi and son of her younger son Sanjay, is a known hardliner on China and Pakistan, but has gone soft on Bangladesh after Awami League came to power.
His cousin, Rahul Gandhi is a Congress General Secretary.
The agreement is stuck because it needs a constitution amendment bill to formalise.
The Congress-led UPA government is all set to introduce the bill in parliament but it does not have the required majority to pass it and would need BJP support.
The BJP top brass does not appear willing to let the bill pass, primarily because of grave reservations entertained by its Assam unit.
But Varun Gandhi has now come out in strong support of the LBA and Teesta deals in an article in ‘Times of India ‘ on Tuesday — hot on the heels of pro-BJP strategic thinker retired Lt Gen SK Sinha’s strong support to LBA and Teesta.
Sinha in an interview with Indian TV agency ANI said Delhi must support the Hasina government in the strongest possible terms and the LBA and Teesta deals must be inked soonest.
Gandhi says much the same in his article, reflecting deep divisions in the BJP on the issue.
“Despite being birthed through Indian midwifery, Bangladesh’s growing anti-Indian Islamic tilt and illegal migration had become concerns. But with a pro-Indian government coming to power, India has squandered an opportunity to improve relations,” says Varun Gandhi in his article titled “Adrift Choppy waters”.
Without commenting on his party’s opposition to the LBA, Gandhi says: “Instead of operationalising the Land Boundary protocol dating back to the 1974 Indira-Mujib Land Boundary Agreement which resolves 6.4 kms of undemarcated border and building trust, we resorted to legal hokum,” Gandhi says.
He adds: ” We need to ink the Teesta water-sharing treaty which gives Bangladesh 25% of its waters despite 40% percent of the river flowing through it, as well finalise a strategic transit pact regulating access to our northeast.”
Many would imagine his dig at ‘legal hokum’ is aimed at his own partymen who have raised hell over the LBA.
The rest of the article is all about what Gandhi feels are foreign policy failures of the Manmohan Singh government, specially his contention that India has been completely outmanoeuvred in Asia and Africa by China.
He remains hardline on Pakistan as well.
Lt Gen Sinha, who had been governor of two strategic border states like Assam and Kashmir during the BJP rule, had come out in strong support of the Hasina government, prodding Delhi to do more.
He had also strongly supported the operationalising of LBA and the signing of the Teesta water sharing deal, criticising Manmohan Singh for being indecisive when faced with West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s resistance.
Source: Bd news24
