Tell US to end romance with Pak: BJP

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would like the Government to tell the United States during their upcoming strategic dialogue to end its romance with Pakistan and cooperate with India to defeat Islamist terrorism, says party spokesperson Tarun Vijay.

That’s the area Indian External Affairs Minister SM Krishna, who would be leading the June 3-4 dialogue with US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, should focus on, Tarun Vijay told IANS in a phone interview from New Jersey.

“India has to fight terrorism on its own sinews,” he said. “And it should tell America that if you don’t cooperate with India on fighting terror, it will be a great loss to its own fight against terror.”

“At present America seems to be siding with the dictatorial army junta (in Pakistan) and is itself obsessed in its own fight against terrorism,” Vijay said. “That will not help peace and stability in South Asia.”

While in America, Krishna should also focus more on the Indian-American youth and its great potential for helping the cause of India, he said citing the example of Jews, who have used their relationship for the benefit of Israel.

Vijay, who was in the US to inaugurate and keynote the Overseas Friends of BJP national convention in Houston, said BJP itself is forming a “Resurgent India Group, USA” to harness the potential of Indian-American youth.

“They will work for America. They will remain loyal to the American flag with the punch line that ‘Indians don’t bomb the country they adopt.'”

“They will do whatever they can do to help strengthen the India cause in Washington by lobbying for the Indian interests, providing all the necessary information to the American leaders about the challenges India is facing.”

They would also help in “making Washington understand that its Pakistan romance will not be good even for the American people, nor for another democracy that’s India.”

The BJP spokesperson said he got an “amazing response” to his remarks at public gatherings of Indian-Americans in Houston and New Jersey on the challenges facing India and the role of Indian-American youth.

“We found that Indian-American youth are very much interested in making India a better place to live,” he said. “They want to come back to India and do their bit as accomplished achievers in the US.”

“They remain loyal to the American flag if they are American citizens. At the same time they feel an emotional ‘dharma’ (duty) for their motherland.”

“That was the chord I aimed to touch and got an amazing response,” Vijay said saluting the “Indian-American upsurge in the US expressed through Sonal Shah, Rajiv Shah, Preet Bhrara, Rita Bansal and Vinod Khosla.”

The BJP is now planning a visit to the US sometime this year by party president Nitin Gadkari to inter-act with young Indian-Americans to remove misconceptions about BJP and make them more vigorously for the India cause, Vijay said.

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