Deputy Prime Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani on Friday said he completely agreed with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's statement in the Parliament that Pakistan must stop cross-border terrorism.
"How can you have friendship with Pakistan if it doesn't dismantle terrorist infrastructure in that country," he said at a function at the Bharatiya Janata Party headquarters in New Delhi.
He took a dig at those who were trying to create a divide between him and Vajpayee, especially media reports about his absence in the Lok Sabha on Thursday when the prime minister was replying to a debate on Indo-Pak relations. "This was a puerile approach," he said, adding, "I had informed the prime minister that as I was busy with work in the ministry and I would not be present in the House. I watched the entire proceedings, including the reply by the prime minister on television."
In the wake of the debate on telephone tariffs in Parliament, he asked National Democratic Alliance constituents not to openly criticise government policies, but to raise them at the appropriate forum.
Hitting out at the opposition, he said, "Their efforts were only to see how to create a rift within the NDA partners, between parties and government and within the Parivar."
Advani also appreciated the systematic manner in which Bharatiya Janata Party President M Venkaiah Naidu has been organising the party with frequent interaction between party ministers, MPs and workers.
Naidu said the party fully supported the prime minister's peace initiatives with Pakistan and added, "We want him to move forward. It is a coalition and once government decides, the entire party is with him."
