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Senior BJP leader LK Advani on Sunday claimed that former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao was isolated within the Congress over having diplomatic relations with Israel, as the grand old party feared it would affect their minority vote.
Advani wrote in his blog on Sunday, after returning from a trip to United States in 1992, he had called on Rao to share with the PM the sentiments of Jewish groups he met in that country.
“After briefing him about my meetings with the American Jewish groups, I said, “Narasimha Raoji, before you go, take a bold decision on establishing full diplomatic relations with Israel.” He replied, “I am all for it, but my party is not ready,” Advani wrote in his blog.
Invariably, Advani said, Jewish groups would meet and ask him, “We are friends of India. We want India to become a strong power and play a major role in world affairs. But why has your country not yet established full diplomatic relations with Israel?”
My reply to them was, Advani wrote, “My party is fully in favour of full normalisation of relations with Israel. But we are not in power. The Congress party, which has been in power for the longest period since Independence, is opposed to it, and so are the Communist parties.”
Advani said he tried convincing Rao, saying India’s policy towards Israel should not be “trapped in this imaginary apprehension over the reaction of some Muslims in India” and “After all several Muslim countries are planning to open diplomatic relations with Israel. Egypt and Turkey have already done so. Even Palestinians want to co-exist with Israel”.
Advani also told Rao, “Therefore, if something is in our national interest, we should explain it to people who may be opposed to it” and suggested the country’s foreign policy should be “immune to such false considerations of domestic pressure”.
He claimed that Rao agreed with him and formed a Group of Ministers to look into the matter and for evolving a “wider ownership” of such a decision. The senior BJP leader praised Rao for keeping his word.
“The GOM made a positive recommendation. Today India has normal relations with Israel, fortified immensely during the six years of Vajpayee’s NDA regime,” Advani said. The former Deputy Prime Minister recently played host to a group of 61 Americans, including Jews, who were visiting India to meet the Dalai Lama. “They spent over an hour at our residence, learning how the BJP had contributed towards making India develop normal diplomatic relations with Israel,” Advani said.
Advani wrote in his blog on Sunday, after returning from a trip to United States in 1992, he had called on Rao to share with the PM the sentiments of Jewish groups he met in that country.
“After briefing him about my meetings with the American Jewish groups, I said, “Narasimha Raoji, before you go, take a bold decision on establishing full diplomatic relations with Israel.” He replied, “I am all for it, but my party is not ready,” Advani wrote in his blog.
Invariably, Advani said, Jewish groups would meet and ask him, “We are friends of India. We want India to become a strong power and play a major role in world affairs. But why has your country not yet established full diplomatic relations with Israel?”
My reply to them was, Advani wrote, “My party is fully in favour of full normalisation of relations with Israel. But we are not in power. The Congress party, which has been in power for the longest period since Independence, is opposed to it, and so are the Communist parties.”
Advani said he tried convincing Rao, saying India’s policy towards Israel should not be “trapped in this imaginary apprehension over the reaction of some Muslims in India” and “After all several Muslim countries are planning to open diplomatic relations with Israel. Egypt and Turkey have already done so. Even Palestinians want to co-exist with Israel”.
Advani also told Rao, “Therefore, if something is in our national interest, we should explain it to people who may be opposed to it” and suggested the country’s foreign policy should be “immune to such false considerations of domestic pressure”.
He claimed that Rao agreed with him and formed a Group of Ministers to look into the matter and for evolving a “wider ownership” of such a decision. The senior BJP leader praised Rao for keeping his word.
“The GOM made a positive recommendation. Today India has normal relations with Israel, fortified immensely during the six years of Vajpayee’s NDA regime,” Advani said. The former Deputy Prime Minister recently played host to a group of 61 Americans, including Jews, who were visiting India to meet the Dalai Lama. “They spent over an hour at our residence, learning how the BJP had contributed towards making India develop normal diplomatic relations with Israel,” Advani said.
