“P Chidambaram will go to the US with proof of Pak involvement in 26/11 attacks. This news sends a wave of shocks of despair and helplessness (sic) with which the UPA seems to be suffering at the moment. Going to a third country with requests to act against Pakistan means just bleating by a weak individual,” reads the editorial of the BJP mouthpiece Kamal Sandesh in its latest issue (January 16-31) that hit the stands on Tuesday.

While Chidambaram cancelled his US visit ostensibly owing to the truckers’ strike last week, the BJP journal goes on to add: “It is beyond comprehension why Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is so impatient to seek the favour of USA in this behalf (sic). Does it mean that India’s case is so weak that UPA is trying to strengthen its case by beseeching the US support?”

Ironically, a five-member NDA delegation that was touring China last week tried to impress upon them “to work on Pakistan so that it mends its ways”. When the Standing Committee of the Politburo of Communist Party of China asked the NDA delegation to take up the matter with Pakistan, the visiting delegates argued that “it was hardly a bilateral issue between the two countries and that the entire world was variously suffering from the Pak scourge”.

“If the UPA had the guts and the will to respect the will of the people, it should have taught it a lesson the day Pakistan launched a full-scale war on India’s economic capital of Mumbai. On the contrary, the then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee rose to the occasion during Kargil war and got every inch of land liberated from marauders,” adds the editorial.

Slamming the BJP, Congress’s Satyavrat Chaturvedi said: “It’s probably their tradition. They have always launched personal attacks on Congress leaders, right from the days of Indira Gandhi. This also shows their doublespeak. On the one hand, they promise to be one with the government in the country’s war on terror, on the other, they launch a personal attack on the Union Home Minister who has just taken over and initiated some firm, cogent measures to fight terror.”