BJP may snap ties with ally if it disrupts Pakistan tour (17 January 1999)

17 January 1999

BJP may snap ties with ally if it disrupts Pakistan tour

AFP

NEW DELHI, Jan 17 (AFP) - India's ruling Hindu nationalists may snap ties with a Hindu militant group in the western state of Maharashtara if it disrupts Pakistan's cricket tour of India, a report said Sunday.

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP, Indian People's Party) is willing to risk the fall of the alliance government in Maharashtra if the Shiv Sena persists with its plan, The Times of India said.

"The Sena cannot be our ally and at the same time cause us international embarassment," sources in the BJP told the daily.

Vajpayee has pledged to prevent the militants holding the tour to ransom, and Pakistan's ambassador in New Delhi has said the tour was likely to go ahead on those assurances.

The cricket tour is the first first Pakistan tour on Indian soil since 1987.

The venue of the first Test due to begin January 28 was changed to the southern city of Madras after Shiv Sena activists dug up the pitch in New Delhi.

"It is regrettable that even after Vajpayee talked him, Sena chief Bal Thackeray, has not relented. On the contrary, the latter has adopted a more confrontationist attitude," the BJP source said.

The daily said that if the tour was cancelled because of the Sena's actions after the Pakistanis land in India, then the BJP may jettison the Sena.

"The cancellation of the tour after the team lands in India will ... provide ample grist to Islamabad's propaganda mill," the source added.

"He (Thackeray) should desist from actively opposing the matches."

In 1991, supporters of Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray vandalised the pitch at Bombay's Wankhede stadium two days before Pakistan were to start a limited over series in India.

Pakistan are not scheduled to play in the Shiv Sena-controlled western state of Maharashtra, which includes the cricket-mad state capital of Bombay, during the two-month tour.

Shiv Sena leaders said they would go ahead with their plan to "sabotage" the tour.

"Let the BJP do what it wants. We are prepared to face any eventuality," a Shiv Sena leader said.

Ajay Srivastava, president of Shiv Sena's youth wing in New Delhi told AFP on Saturday that his party has formed a 51-member "suicide squad who will immolate themselves at 10 a.m (0430 GMT) on January 28 at the prime minister's residence," on the first day of the first match in India.

"This will be our way of protesting against the match."

Shiv Sena chief in Delhi, Jai Bhagwan Goel, was quoted in several newspapers as saying that about 5,000 activists of the party would buy tickets for the opening match and "be present in the stadium."

"They will then jump on the field and even attack Pakistani cricketers," Goel said.

Delhi police chief, V.N. Singh, said the security plan for the match was "foolproof."

"The situation is being assessed on a regular basis ... we are confident that the match will be held in a peaceful atmospehere and have developed a foolproof strategy."

Source :: AFP