RIYADH, 11 April 2008 — Salman Khurshid, a veteran Indian leader and political heavyweight of the Congress party, said yesterday that Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee would visit Saudi Arabia on April 19 to prepare grounds for the visit of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the near future.
“What Saudi Arabia thinks and does is very important to India, which has the second-largest Muslim population in the world,” said Khurshid.
Khurshid currently works in a high-profile group led by Rahul Gandhi, general secretary of All India Congress Committee (AICC), which is entrusted with the task of making the party more democratic.
Khurshid, who taught at the prestigious Trinity College, Oxford before starting his public career, said that he would also accompany Mukherjee, whose visit will focus on intensifying political, economic and energy ties between Riyadh and Delhi. Mukherjee will also lay the foundation stone of the new building of the local Delhi Public School during his Riyadh trip, he said.
The former minister was speaking to Arab News after his play entitled “Sons of Babur” was staged at the Indian Embassy Auditorium here yesterday.
The talks between the Indian foreign minister and Saudi officials will focus on a wide range of bilateral, regional and global issues, including cooperation in combating terrorism and the situation in the Middle East in the wake of the stepped-up violence in the Gaza Strip last month.
Khurshid also underscored his talks with Rahul Gandhi.
“In fact, AICC General Secretary Rahul Gandhi has unveiled his idea of democratization in the party and he has set up a high-profile ‘Group to Look Into Future Challenges & Opportunities’, winding up its six-month long deliberations on intra-party reforms at a meeting recently.” This group includes Rahul, Veerappa Moily, Khurshid, Jairam Ramesh and many young MPs, who will work to ensure that democratic principles are adhered to in the party from the grassroots to the provincial level.
Replying to a question about Congress party’s increasing proximity to Mulayam Singh’s Samajwadi Party, Khurshid said: “We need a partner in Uttar Pradesh and Samajwadi Party is a better option... Uttar Pradesh is a big state, it is necessary to find some political partners in UP. Since we have two partners in Bihar, one partner in Kashmir, one partner in Maharashtra, one in Tamil Nadu and in Andhra Pradesh, so why should UP be an exception?”
