Amar and Arun go hammer & tongs

New Delhi, Aug 11: An argument broke out today between Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh and the BJP’s Arun Jaitley as talks failed at an all-party meeting here to discuss the Amarnath deadlock.

Members of the all-party team that visited Jammu and Srinagar last week were expected to discuss their findings at the meeting and suggest a solution.

During the discussions, Amar accused the BJP of being the root cause of the problem, and Jaitley retorted that the meeting was not the place for political wrangles, sources said. The argument ended quickly.

Home minister Shivraj Patil, who chaired the talks, said the discussions were inconclusive. Sources said the government failed to come up with concrete proposals while the BJP stood firm that the land allotment to the shrine board must be restored before any solution could be found.

The delegates will meet again on Tuesday morning. “We will meet at 9am tomorrow and then we will discuss with the Prime Minister and other leaders,” Patil said.

Jaitley later dubbed today’s meeting a “paralysis through analysis”. Amar said the delegates had discussed “a preamble to the approach” that could be taken to solve the problem.

Among those who attended the talks were the Congress’s Ghulam Nabi Azad, Saifuddin Soz and Mohsina Kidwai, the CPM’s Sitaram Yechury and National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah. People’s Democratic Party leader Mehbooba Mufti, who is supporting the protests in Kashmir, stayed away.

As reports of demonstrations in Sopore and Srinagar came in, Patil accused the media of exaggerating the number of protesters.

Source : The Telegraph