Mukherjee took a strong exception to the reports in the media regarding the proposal of safe passage to Pakistani intruders which was discussed in the Cabinet Committee on Security meeting on Friday. Expressing surprise over the release of such an information, he termed it as "unethical, uncalled for, and against the functioning of the Cabinet system."

Mukherjee told reporters that Congress was not either absolving or saving the government for the present war-like situation but would take it to task at an appropriate time. "It is absolutely clear that our territory has been occupied by intruders and they must be driven out. The armed forces are doing the job and are facing bullets," he said.

Justifying the Congress demand for conveninga special session of Rajya Sabha in the wake of the ongoing Kargil conflict, Mukherjee said that it was the most preliminary step the present government could have taken. He made it clear that his party's demand in this regard was not politically motivated but to facilitate informed debate and discussion on the matter. Mukherjee said that national consensus should be expressed through a certain forum and the voice of the nation as a whole should be heard by the world. Mukherjee charged the government that it was hiding some information and the nation has the right to know details of talks between the Indian foreign minister and his Chinese counterpart, between the Indian prime minister and the US president and details of the G-8 declaration, he added.

The Congress leader said that the prime minister could have called for all party meetings at regular intervals to discuss the situation. He opined that decision making at this critical juncture could have been swifter had the government set up separate groupscomprising leaders from various parties with experience in handling key areas like finance, security.

Dwelling on politicisation of Kargil conflict, he lambasted the BJP for projecting Jan Sangh leader SP Mukherjee as the "first martyr in the liberation of Kashmir." The first martyrs were brigadier Osman and major Somnath Sharma, he said.

He reiterated that brigadier Osman and major Sharma were the first martyrs in the war for Kashmir in 1947-48 and not a civilian who died of heart attack in 1953. On the Congress party's decision to support the Bansilal-led government in Haryana, he charged the BJP with trying to create political instability in a border state like Haryana. Congress did not want political instability in Haryana which is maintaining supply lines to our jawans in Kargil and in such a situation, we had no option but to bail out the Haryana Vikas Party in the confidence vote," he viewed.