Rediff.com« Back to articlePrint this article

Advani faults UPA's foreign policy on Lanka, Nepal

May 08, 2009 00:14 IST
Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani on Thursday alleged that the "failure" of the United Progressive Alliance government's foreign policy was responsible for the present situation in Nepal and Sri Lanka, saying the two neighbouring nations were now out of India's "foreign policy ambit."

Addressing an election meeting in Chennai, Advani said, "Nepal and Sri Lanka were influenced by Indian foreign policy before but now they are out of the country's foreign policy ambit. Our neighbours are the victims of wrong policies of the UPA government," the BJP prime ministerial candidate claimed.

The situation in Sri Lanka was "very disgusting and disturbing" and the people of Tamil Nadu were anguished, he said. "Why should the Tamils in Sri Lanka suffer like this?" he asked.

On the current political crisis in Nepal following the standoff over the issue of sacking of the Army chief, Advani said the UPA government "outsourced" handling of Nepal affairs to Communists, who saw a Maoist government in place, but now "anarchy" was prevailing there.

"You may have heard about the word outsourcing. This is the problem (about Nepal). Congress had outsourced the issue to the Left, and told them to handle it. It is because of this handling of the Nepal problem that Maoists' hand was on top in the country. There is chaos and anarchy there. All this is due to the wrong foreign policy of the UPA government," Advani charged.

Addressing another election rally earlier at Paramakudi, Advani said the Indian government must intervene effectively in Sri Lanka to help the Tamils whose sufferings had caused agony and anguish among the people of India.

Advani said he had on Thursday to discuss the situation in Sri Lanka and Nepal. Indian government's influence over Colombo had "dissipated leading to acute suffering to the Tamils".

"We had great influence over Sri Lanka (when National Democratic Alliance was in power). This influence has been dissipated now," he said.

Advani said while the people of Tamil Nadu were anguished over problems faced by Tamils in Sri Lanka, those in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh were concerned about the developments in Nepal.

In his speech at Chennai, Advani said during its six-year -rule, the NDA government had achieved a lot but "over confidence" of his partymen had led to the defeat of the BJP-led alliance in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls.

"We lost only by few seats. We got 138 and the Congress 145. But parties like the CPI-M (Communist Party of India-Marxist) joined the Congress with the sole negative aim of keeping the BJP out of power," he said.

"The UPA was a thoroughly opportunistic alliance and that is why the alliance broke into pieces even before the last session of the Parliament was over," Advani added.

© Copyright 2024 PTI. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of PTI content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent.