V.K. Singh, MEA play down row

‘Hurriyat has been attending the function for 20 years’

A day after his controversial Twitter messages reportedly linked to his attending the Pakistan National Day function, Union Minister of State for External Affairs General (Retd) V.K. Singh on Tuesday sought to play down reports that he was unhappy over officiating at the event at the Pakistan High Commission here.

To a question from a television channel on whether he disapproved of the Hurriyat leaders attending the function, Gen. Singh said, “What’s the big deal? For the past 20 years, the Hurriyat has been attending the celebrations. The government nominates an official to go; it is a matter of diplomatic civility.” He denied being reluctant to attend the function.

Government sources told

The Hindu that the reports were “overblown” as Mr. Singh had been nominated as the government representative earlier. The protocol division of the External Affairs Ministry listed the diplomatic functions that required official representation, and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj cleared the names. Except in 2014, when the model code of conduct had been in place for the Lok Sabha elections and the Ministry nominated the Secretary (East), the Minister of State had been attending the function. “If the MoS [Mr. Singh] had indicated that he was unavailable for the event, an official of the same rank would have been requested to go,” an official said.

Mr. Singh denied criticism by Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari, who told

The Hindu , “If the Minister was uncomfortable or disgusted with his duty, why doesn’t he quit? We know what he was attempting to say, but maybe, he did not understand the implication of his own actions.”

The Opposition criticism came over Gen. Singh’s tweets describing the words “duty” and “disgust”, which were read to mean he had attended the function only out of duty. Even as he sought to distance himself from the comments by saying it was “disgust with the media, not the government” he had referred to, the “Twitter controversy” threatened to snowball in a manner similar to previous controversies generated during United Progressive Alliance rule with Shashi Tharoor as Minister of State. “I don’t need to explain my tweets to anyone,” Gen. Singh told a TV channel.

The comments and the controversy seemed out of step with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s congratulatory message to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Monday, adding that he believed “all outstanding issues can be resolved through bilateral dialogue in an atmosphere free from terror and violence.”

On Tuesday, the External Affairs Ministry and Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry exchanged statements over the presence of Hurriyat leaders at the function, which generated an exceptional amount of criticism this year in the wake of the government’s decision to call off talks with Pakistan last July over High Commissioner Abdul Basit’s meeting with them.

To a statement by Ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin that “there is no place for a third party in resolution of India-Pakistan issues,” Pakistani spokesperson Tasnim Aslam said, “Kashmiris are important stakeholders as they are the ones required to exercise the right of self-determination.”

After meeting Hurriyat leaders Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Umer Farooq earlier this month, Mr. Basit met Abdul Ghani Bhat on Tuesday.