On Friday, Congress leader Kapil Sibal said that the Centre would try to utilise the Afghanistan war, centred on the new Taliban rule, to benefit the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the approaching Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.
Sibal said that the whole federal government’s strategy toward the Taliban regime will be driven by how it can utilise the situation to its benefit in the UP-assembly polls, even though India has practically any role to play in an “inclusive intra-Afghan discussion.”
On Friday, Congress leader Kapil Sibal said that the Centre would try to utilise the Afghanistan war, centred on the new Taliban rule, to benefit the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the approaching Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.
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The BJP has yet to issue a formal statement in reaction to Kapil Sibal’s comments. The Congress leader’s remarks come a day after TS Tirumurti, India’s permanent representative to the United Nations, reaffirmed India’s position that Afghan territory should not be used to threaten or attack any country.
The Congress party has been criticising the central government’s policy on Afghanistan, claiming that the BJP-led government has time to hold talks with the Taliban in Doha but cannot reach an agreement with protesting farmers who have been demonstrating for months against three contentious agricultural laws.
The government, for its part, has prioritised the wellbeing of Afghans in its strategy. Despite being barred from Afghanistan by the Pakistan-backed Taliban, India has a powerful friend in the Afghan people.
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New Delhi is trying to figure out how to capitalise on the equity that few of Afghanistan’s neighbours, especially Pakistan, can legitimately claim. Only a few days after naming an interim government, the Taliban is already facing escalating problems from Pakistan as the humanitarian catastrophe in the war-torn country worsens.
