The Congress party came out in defence of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday and criticised the BJP for questioning his meeting with separatist leader Yasin Malik. Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera accused the BJP of hypocrisy, pointing out the party’s past interactions with Malik.
“A Prime Minister extending courtesy to someone claiming to pursue peace should not raise eyebrows,” Khera said in a post on X, emphasising: “What truly shocks is why the RSS met Yasin Malik in 2011? The BJP was not even in power then.”
He also questioned: “Why was the BJP-RSS-affiliated think-tank Vivekananda Foundation’s leadership interacting with Yasin Malik?”
Khera highlighted the BJP’s past engagement with Malik, including that of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, when he intervened with the UPA government in May 2007 to let Malik’s Safar-e-Azadi (March for Freedom) proceed. Malik had begun an indefinite hunger strike demanding the right to proceed with the march after being arrested on May 4.
Khera questioned why the BJP is not being held accountable for Vajpayee’s interactions with the Hurriyat leadership. He also pointed out L K Advani’s visit to Jinnah’s grave in Karachi, questioning the BJP’s double standards.
Yasin Malik has claimed that Manmohan Singh thanked him for meeting Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) founder Hafiz Saeed in 2006 as part of a backchannel peace initiative. Malik stated that the meeting was arranged at the request of senior Indian intelligence officials.
“When I met Manmohan Singh as PM, he unhesitatingly said, ‘I consider you the father of non-violent movement in Kashmir’,” Malik had claimed.
“I met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh the same evening in the presence of National Security Adviser N K Narayan. I briefed him on my meetings and apprised him of the possibilities. He conveyed his gratitude to me for my efforts, time, patience, and dedication.”
The BJP has criticised Manmohan Singh’s meeting with Malik, and the national chief of the BJP’s IT wing, Amit Malviya, has stated that Malik is a hardened terrorist.