New Delhi, September 9 : CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury today said the all-party delegation failed to “achieve more” during its Kashmir visit due to government’s “inadequate homework” and delayed response in sending the contingent to the Valley.
“Due to inadequate homework and the delay in taking the delegation to the state, we did not achieve more. The homework required to be done by the government was to identify proposals from several working group recommendations and the Interlocutors report of 2010, and to have crystallised the issues,” he said.
Yechury, who was part of the delegation, said the homework would have enabled a “focussed discussion” with stakeholders around specific proposals and alternatives.
“The government did not do this. Had this been done, the delegation’s visit would have been much more meaningful,” he wrote in an article in party mouthpiece ‘People’s Democracy’.
Referring to his outreach to Hurriyat leaders along with CPI national secretary D Raja, Sharad Yadav of JD(U) and RJD’s JP Yadav during the visit, Yechury said the same should be followed up properly.
He also recalled former Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani’s holding of talks with Hurriyat leaders during NDA-1 regime (in January 2004).
Four of the five Hurriyat leaders met the delegation, while Syed Ali Shah Geelani did not. The separatist leaders had collectively decided not to engage in any political dialogue with the delegation in view of the situation in the Valley, he wrote.
Reiterating his party’s demands, Yechury also said the government should engage in dialogue with all stakeholders including Pakistan, besides taking confidence building measures to bridge trust deficit among people of the state.
Pointing towards the post-visit statement issued by the delegation, which had appealed people of the state to shun violence and resolve issues through discussion, he said it was now incumbent upon the government to implement the understanding in “right earnest”. In this context Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s slogan of ‘Vikas aur Vishwas’ (development and trust) would sound “hollow and meaningless” if not backed by “concrete” actions, he said.
Yechury suggested it could be done on the lines of how the NDA-I government had announced unilateral ceasefire after then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee gave the slogans of ‘jamhooriyat (democracy), insaniyat (humanity) and Kashmiriyat’.
