Government almost says so: PM will skip Colombo meet

NEW DELHI: The government on Saturday gave the strongest official indication yet that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would skip the Commonwe a l t h Heads of Governments Meeting (CHOGM) in Colombo from November 15-17, bowing to pressure from politicians from Tamil Nadu who have urged him to boycott the meet due to allegations of war crimes by the Sri Lankan government against Lankan Tamils.

The ministry of external affairs ( MEA) spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin told reporters on Saturday that the government has not yet communicated the outcome of “our internal process” (of decision making) and “will make it known once it is communicated (to Colombo)” — a construct of words that has been widely interpreted to mean the PM’s nonparticipation. If the PM was indeed flying to Colombo, Delhi would have informed Colombo by now. Dropping out of the meet would mean that the compulsion of coalition politics has trumped foreign policy.

The MEA actually built up Singh’s case for non-participation, circulating a document that showed that prime ministers of India have not always led delegations in the CHOGMs since 1993. Former PM AB Vajpayee attended the meet twice in 1999 (Durban) and 2003 (Abuja).

Singh has already attended twice — in 2007 (Kampala) and 2009 (Port of Spain). External affairs ministers have twice led Indian delegations during the past two decades — Pranab Mukherjee (Auckland, 1995) and Jaswant Singh (2002, Coolum).

In 2005, commerce minister Kamal Nath led the Indian delegation in Malta. Singh also headed the delegation in 1993 in Cyprus CHOGM as finance minister. In 2011, vice-president Hamid Ansari represented India at the CHOGM in Perth. But sources said Ansari would not replace PM Singh this time. That means external affairs minister Salman Khurshid will lead the Indian team.