Taking a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s surprise visit to Lahore, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ally Shiv Sena on Monday cautioned him saying the political career of those who went close to Pakistan was cut short.
Citing examples of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and party MP Lal Krishna Advani, an editorial in the Sena mouthpiece, Saamna, said the trick of ‘going close’ to Pakistan did not work.
“Advani went to the tomb of Jinnah and sang paeans. It was the beginning of the end to his political career and today he has been sidelined. Vajpayee too toiled hard to improve relations with Pakistan. He started the bus service and even met Pervez Musharraf at Agra. But he could never bring BJP government back to power,” said the editorial, calling the meeting between Mr. Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif as a ‘brave’ one.
The editorial asked Mr. Modi to remember: “There is a superstition that those politicians who went close to Pakistan, lost their political career.”
The Sena even took a potshot at the BJP asking it to imagine what it would have said had it been a Congress’ PM instead of Mr. Modi.
“Modi’s efforts to improve relations with Pakistan are admirable. But the country also wonders about BJP’s reaction, had it been a Congress’ PM who landed at Karachi or Lahore,” the party said.
