Giving a counter to the former Vice-President , who described BJP’s allegations of him “leaking information” to a Pakistani journalist whom he invited to India as “litany of falsehood”, the BJP on Friday said it stood by its charges and cited a photograph of both purportedly sharing stage during a conference in India in 2009 on terrorism.
The former-Vice-President too, in his rebuttal, said he stood by his first statement. In a fresh attack on Ansari, the BJP said he has put the “entire blame” on the then Congress-led-UPA Government by contending that he had not invited Pakistani scribe Nusrat Mirza as foreign guests are invited by the Government of India only on the advice of the Foreign Ministry." The BJP said, “It would not be wrong to say Congress has links with anti-national forces and its current flows from Pakistan. Ansari and Congress president Sonia Gandhi will have to answer on this issue.”
Addressing a Press conference at the BJP headquarters, the party's national spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia showed a picture of Ansari purportedly sharing a stage with Mirza at a conference on terrorism here in 2009. People holding constitutional posts should act responsibly and should have not shared the stage with Mirza, Bhatia said. Subsequent to BJP’s new attack, Ansari , in his second rejoinder, said he stands by his previous statement that he never knew or invited Pakistani journalist Nusrat Mirza to any conference.
Mirza has claimed that he had visited India five times during the UPA rule and passed on sensitive information collected here to his country's spy agency ISI. Mirza purportedly commented that he had visited India on Ansari's invitations and also met him."The former Vice President of India stands by his earlier statement that he never knew or invited Pakistan journalist Nusrat Mirza to any conference, including the 2010 conference mentioned by Nusrat Mirza or 2009 conference on terrorism or on any other occasion," a statement from Ansari's office said.
Rebutting the BJP's claim of inviting Mirza, Ansari had earlier said it is a known fact that invitations to foreign dignitaries by the Vice-President of India are on the advice of the government, generally through the Ministry of External Affairs. Hitting out at the Congress, Bhatia said intelligence clearance is required for holding such programmes and inviting dignitaries from abroad.
For a programme of someone holding a constitutional post, protocol dictates that his office gathers information about those involved in the event.
In such a situation, would it not be correct to believe that the Congress wanted a person from Pakistan to enter India and hurt its integrity, he alleged.
Senior advocate Adish Aggarwala, who organized a conference on terrorism and human rights by the International Council of Jurists in New Delhi in 2010, has claimed that the former Vice President had asked him to invite the Pakistani journalist and alleged spy Nusrat Mirza to a seminar on terrorism, but he had refused.
He also reportedly claimed that subsequent to his refusal to invite the Pakistani scribe, Ansari expressed his displeasure and attended the ICJ conference only for 20 minutes.
“I was asked by the office of Hamid Ansari to invite Nusrat Mirza, I did not. After I refused to invite Nusrat Mirza, the former V-P only came to the event for 20 minutes,” Aggarwala told a television channel.
Aggarwal also claimed that the photograph purportedly showing former Vice-President and the Pakistani journalist is that of a 2009 conference on terrorism organized by Abdullah Bukhari.