LOC trouble: PM should have reacted earlier, feel CCS members

NEW DELHI: Tension in Indo-Pak ties may have eased now but during the height of the diplomatic row, some members of the Cabinet Committee on Security expressed strong reservations about the 'delay' in the prime minister's response.

CCS has the prime minister and ministers of finance, home, defence, external affairs and the National Security Advisor as members. Last Monday, when it met to discuss the best possible response to an escalating rhetoric with Pakistan, some members argued that given the nature of the provocation - mutilation of bodies of two Indian soldiers by Pakistani troops who crossed the Line of Control - absence of a substantive intervention by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was a 'weak link' in India's approach, a senior minister told ET.

Significantly, the prime minister's statement that it can't be business as usual with Pakistan came a day after last Monday's CCS meeting, a week after the incident first captured headlines.

The senior minister said that last Monday's CCS meeting strategised on the prime minister's response in terms of timing and content, with members making the point that the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) should have intervened just as defence minister AK Antony and P Chidambaram, in his capacity as head of Group of Ministers, Media, did.

ET has learnt that the members of the Cabinet Committee on Security had also made the point that with certain kinds of incidents provoking quick and widespread critiques from multiple-media platforms, the speed of high-value government response needed to match the speed of information dissemination. Senior government officials, who did not want to be identified, said the Pakistan incident has strengthened the case for revisiting the government's communication strategy, with both speed and content having been found wanting on many recent occasions.

PMO officials told ET that keeping the prime minister out of the statement war was deliberate since early intervention may have escalated matters. They, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said NSA Shiv Shankar Menon, was in continuous touch with all senior ministers and there was coordination in framing the government's strategy.