I have been a strong and consistent critic of the manner in which the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has been handling India-Pakistan relations.
Nobody has written more strongly on his agreement with then Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf at Havana in September 2006 for a joint counter-terrorism machinery than I.
Nobody has written more strongly on his failure to deal effectively with Pakistan post-26/11 than I.
Nobody has hit out more vehemently at him post-Sharm-el-Sheikh (July 2009) than I for making a reference to Balochistan in his joint statement with Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani.I had also written an open letter to Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, the Congress (I) President, on this subject.
I had criticised him on other occasions too for what I perceived was a lack of consistency in his policy towards Pakistan.
Yet, despite my past criticism of Dr. Manmohan Singh, I have refrained from deploring the initiative taken by him in inviting President Asif Ali Zardari and Gilani to watch the India-Pakistan World Cup cricket semi-final at Mohali on March 30 except on the ground that inviting both the Head of State and the Head of government of Pakistan could impose a heavy responsibility on our intelligence and security agencies which would be called upon to protect them.
My decision to refrain from criticising our Prime Minister's Mohali initiative could be attributed to two reasons.