Cricket and diplomacy should be kept separate: BJP
BJP on Thursday said cricket and diplomacy between India and Pakistan should be kept separate and the game allowed to remain a game.
"Let the game be game.dialogue diplomacy should be separated from cricket," senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj told reporters at the BJP state headquarters.
Responding to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s invitation to his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani to watch on Wednesday's semi-final encounter between the two countries at Mohali which India won, she initially described it as "thing of the past."
However,pressed for her party's reaction, the opposition leader in the Lok Sabha said games and diplomacy should be kept separate.
The BJP leader is here for campaigning for the April 13 Assembly elections.
Insisting that cricket should be allowed to remain agame, Swaraj said the "so much hype" surrounding on Wednesday's match, which India won by 29 runs, was "not desirable".
On the WikiLeaks controversy over her party colleague and leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley's reported comment that BJP was using Hindutva as an opportunistic tool, Swaraj said Jaitley was not the kind of leader to make such remarks.
"Arunji (Jaitley) has denied it.I know him from the ABVP days. He wouldn't have said anything like that. The assessment by the (US) diplomat is absolutely wrong," she said.
WikiLeaks cables had reported that Robert Blake, Charge d'Affaires at the US embassy, had conveyed to his government, after a meeting with Jaitley on May 6, 2005, that "Jaitley argued that Hindu nationalism will always be a talking point for the BJP. However, he characterised this as an opportunistic issue."
Jaitley has maintained he had not used the word "opportunistic".
Swaraj, who is also in-charge of party affairs in Tamil Nadu, expressed confidence that BJP can return "impressive" number of MLAs to the Assembly after the April 13 elections.
She, however, did not put a number to it and said anti-incumbency and Tamil people's "positive feeling" over some of the issues raised by BJP in Parliament would augur well for the party.
Swaraj said despite no (BJP) MP representing Tamil Nadu in Parliament, she had taken up issues such as the Sri Lankan Tamils issue and attacks on Indian fishermen from the state besides taking it up with Lankan high commissioner to India.
Slamming the DMK for offering freebies as part of its poll promises, she said, "If the rulers (DMK) think freebies can counter the 2G spectrum scam in which former telecom minister A. Raja (of DMK) has been jailed, they are utterly mistaken."
Referring to its exit from BJP-led NDA "at the last hour" during the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, she described DMK as "opportunistic".
Referring to DMK president M. Karunanidhi's criticism of the Election Commission, she said, "It was an outburst of frustration."
Karunanidhi had attacked the EC for ordering transfer of top police officials in the state including DGP Letika Saran and ADGP (Intelligence) Jaffer Sait, saying it was done based on AIADMK's complaint.
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