Congress President Rahul Gandhi said on Friday that the Narendra Modi government lacks a “coherent strategy” towards Pakistan and attacked Modi for his foreign policy based on “hugs”. Speaking at an event at the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) of London, Gandhi said that Pakistan promotes terrorism in India and it is not possible to talk in such a situation.
“The Modi government lack a coherent strategy towards Pakistan, it’s episodic. The Prime Minister flies there for a wedding. There’s no deeply thought out strategy,” he said. Taking a dig at the Prime Minister, Gandhi said: “I’ve also been trapped in the hug politics but I don’t think you can run foreign policy based on hugs. It doesn’t work. We have tremendous structures in our country, institutional structures that understand these things, one has to use those structures to develop strategy.” “The question with Pakistan is who do you talk to in Pakistan. Pakistan, from our perspective, has a number of institutions. So the difficulty from an Indian perspective is which institution do you talk to?” Gandhi said.
The Congress leader said some of the institutions in Pakistan are hostile towards India and some are attacking India. “So we don’t want to talk to them.” He said: “You wait till the time Pakistan is able to resolve some of these issues, you wait till the time Pakistan is able to have a coherent structure you can talk to, but it’s very difficult to sign something if you don’t know what’s going to happen the next day.” “It’s a huge commitment of political will…and if you sign something and the next dayelike that happened for example with Mr. Vajpayee and that is a classic example,” he added.
On India’s relationship with South Asian countries, Gandhi said: “What is important is that you develop a strategy based on your foundational strengths.” “I don’t see a coherent strategy based on India’s strength, I see tactical responses, I see knee-jerk reactions but I don’t see a strategic vision that says this is how India is going to chart its course through 21st century,” he added. He also attacked the Prime Minister for what he temed “centralisation of power” and said: “What is being going on in the last four years is a massive centralisation of power, in the CM on one hand and the PM on the other.”
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