Indian Bandwagon for US grows in size everyday

Indian Bandwagon for US grows in size everyday
HARISH GUPTA

NEW DELHI, AUGUST 20: In September, almost everyone of Delhi's political who's who will be in the US. Or they are trying to be there.

While several Union ministers, top bureaucrats and even some MPs will be able to make it to New York, San Francisco and Washington in the PrimeMinister's special aircraft, a large number of others are looking for other opportunities.

Speaker of the Lok Sabha, G.M.C. Balayogi who initially planned totake a party of eight to New York's millennium conference of presiding officers would now have more than a dozen. They leave on August 27.

At least 300 delegates would in New York to participate inthe world spiritual conference this month end. Though leaders of all religions would be participating, it is dominated mostly by the Hindus. B.K. Modi, an industrialist and president of the international wing of the VishwaHindu Parishad, is the chief co-ordinator. All top leaders of the RSS, VHP, including MPs owing allegiance to the Sangh Parivar will be attending the 10-day long meet.

RSS Chief K.S. Sudarshan and his deputy Madan Das Devi are alreadyabroad. Ashok Singhal, Giriraj Kishore, B.P. Singhal, Mahant AvidyaNath, Swami Agnivesh (Arya Samaj) and several Christian and Muslim leaderswill also be there. So will be Karan Singh, L.M. Singhvi and Abid Hussain.

But there is a problem. The US embassy is not keen on such a large contingent from India. Of the 300 proposed delegates for the conference, it has issued visas for less than 50 so far. Political pressure is beingmounted to allow them to travel to the US in the name of religion -- including those who demolished the Babri Masjid.

The composition of Balayogi's delegation has already created a controversy. He has chosen to include two MPs from the Samajwadi Party in his delegation while Laloo Prasad Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal and Janata Dal (U)'s both factions have been left out. There are two persons from the seven-memberNationalists Congress Party -- Sharad Pawar and P.A. Sangma. However,Sangma made it clear that he is going there as an executive member ofthe committee of the presiding officers.

Though deputy leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party MadhavraoScindia had been invited along with Congress president Sonia Gandhi, he has declined. Chief Whip P.R. Dasmunshi and Pranab Mukherjee will join thedelegation.

The composition of PM's delegation has also run into difficulties asmost of the ministers and even MPs want to go with him. The specialaircraft cannot take more than 100 guests as there is a large contingentof security personnel and personal attendants too.

At least six Union ministers including Jaswant Singh, Yashwant Sinha,Murasoli Maran, Vasundhara Raje Scindia are travelling with the PM. At least 20 top bureaucrats will also be part of the team.