Former Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha, who recently led a group of concerned citizens to Kashmir, was hopeful of resumption of a formal dialogue between Kashmir and New Delhi soon and has sought an appointment with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to deliberate on the issue.
The senior BJP leader claimed that he had meetings with several senior functionaries in the NDA government and is doing ‘front ground work’ to resume a formal dialogue process soon. Even though Sinha was tight lipped about the meetings, sources said he has met Home Minister Rajnath Singh and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and discussed his visit to Kashmir.
Sinha believes in former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s doctrine of ‘Insaniyat, Jhamooriyat and Kashmiriyat’ on Kashmir and is advocating and lobbying for immediate resumption of ‘unconditional’ dialogue process with all stakeholders in J&K, including Hurriyat. And for Pakistan to make the ‘triangular talks’ possible at a latter stage, Sinha said they have to abide by the commitment of not “exporting violence and terror.”
“I had many formal meetings on Kashmir with people in the government, but I don’t want to talk about it at this point of time. I will leave it undefined. I would not be striving if I was not hopeful. I don’t give up easily,” Sinha told ET at his Noida residence. “Dialogue process is something which is straight out of Agenda of Alliance (coalition document of BJP and PDP) and we are merely telling the new government their own truth.”
On Vajpayee’s doctrine, Sinha said, Vajpayee’s Insaniyat, did not talk about four corners of Constitution. “He wanted to get out of this rigmarole of ‘Constitution and outside the Constitution.”
Even though both BJP and NDA has disassociated themselves from Sinha’s initiative, this remains the only high profile ‘informally-formal’ talking link between New Delhi and Kashmir right now.
