The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Tuesday, July 2, 2002, Chandigarh, India

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Advani to be helping hand: PM
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 1
Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajapyee today admitted that Mr Lal Krishna Advani would be a “helping hand” to him.

Talking to mediapersons in the Ashoka Hall after the Union Cabinet’s expansion, Mr Vajpayee said Mr Advani being the Deputy Prime Minister would prove him “help”.

Asked about the possibility of Trinamool Congress Mamata Banerjee joining the Cabinet, Mr Vajpayee said “everything is possible” and hastened to reply to another question saying that another Cabinet expansion was not on the cards now.

But Mr Advani’s stamp on today’s Cabinet expansion-cum-reshuffle was clear and visible as a Minister of State was seen discussing with the Deputy Prime Minister about his portfolio.

Mr Advani’s cryptic reply to him was “we shall see in future”. Most of the ministers of the Vajpayee’s Cabinet automatically gravitated towards him.

Not only that the Deputy Prime Minister has a pre-eminent position in the government but even in the BJP he is the uncrowned king where his blue eyed boy M. Venkaiah Naidu holds the command.

With hard Hindutatva back on the BJP agenda, Mr Advani has undoubtedly emerged as the next Prime Ministerial candidate of the party as well as of the NDA.

Musharraf ‘not worried’ over Cabinet reshuffle

Islamabad, July 1
Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf said today that progress in resolving tensions with India was possible through dialogue with whoever was in charge in New Delhi.

General Musharraf was speaking after Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee finalised a Cabinet reshuffle that gave Home Minister L.K. Advani the key job of Deputy Prime Minister.

“As far as we are concerned we need to address the issue frontally, grab the bull by the horns, as we are always doing,” General Musharraf said. “Whichever the leadership in India, whether Mr Vajpayee or Mr Advani, we need to involve them, we need to try to negotiate with them in a realistic manner.”

“In a news conference with visiting Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, General Musharraf was asked if Mr Advani’s apparent advance within the government would harm relations with India.

“The issue will remain whatever the leadership in India. The nation’s perception of these issues continues unchanged,” the General said. Reuters