India tries to take credit for Kartarpur corridor

On November 9, Prime Minister Imran Khan will inaugurate the Kartarpur Corridor, which has been completed within a record time of less than a year. It was indeed Imran Khan’s initiative, and of course COAS General Qamar Javed Bajwa backed the initiative as he believed in having good relations with the neighboring countries. However, according to Kartarpur video released by Indian government, effort has been made to take the credit for the project, as if it was Inidia’s initiative. The fact remained that India had to agree to the project otherwise it would have annoyed the Sikh community. Indian media also tried to give it a color of strategic planning, as according to the story in ‘The Print’, a top India government official reportedly said that the real initiative was taken by the Pakistani Army and not Prime Minister Imran Khan.
The official said: “The opening of the corridor was announced at the inauguration of Prime Minister Imran Khan (referring to his swearing-in ceremony) last year in August, which should make it clear that it predates Imran Khan. So while Prime Minister Imran Khan is being shown as the face of this initiative, it is really an initiative that came from the Pakistan Army…This is a project pushed and promoted by the Pakistan Army.” The official added India had been pushing for the project since 1999, when former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee had travelled to Pakistan and put the proposal before his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif. In fact, it was part of the Delhi-Lahore Bus diplomacy and Kartarpur Corridor as such was not discussed. The question is why India had not followed it up?
Indian official added: “The Kartarpur discussion has survived at least two bilateral crises. We had Pulwama in February and we continued to have this conversation (on Kartarpur) despite the events and in August, we had Article 370 and Pakistan escalated the rhetoric on everything else but the Kartarpur Corridor project survived. That is a testimony to the fact that powers larger than the democratic or civil leadership of Pakistan have been pushing it,” the official added. Quoting the unknown government official, ‘The Print’ wrote that underlying strategic move was to build leverage and possibly promote a separatist movement in Punjab to leverage the issue of Khalistan and leverage the 2020 referendum. Having all said, former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will be part of 550 VVIPs to travel via corridor; however, Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu is not a part of this delegation.
According to another report, Pakistani flags have been hoisted in Jalandhar, and hoardings of Imran Khan and Navjot Sidhu have come up in Amritsar, hailing them as real heroes for making the dream of Kartarpur project a reality. In November 2018, Prime Minister Imran Khan had performed the groundbreaking of the Kartarpur Corridor honoring his commitment to Navjot Sidhu when he had come to attend his oath-taking ceremony in August 2018. Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa and Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi were accompanying the premier when Sidhu had arrived at Kartarpur. Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu, Minister for Food Harsimrat Kaur Badal and Minister for Housing Hardeep S. Puri stood alongside the premier, as he laid the foundation stone of the corridor. Anyhow, linking Kartarpur Corridor with strategic plan of Pakistan is in bad taste and condemnable.