On Board Prime Minister’s Aircraft, February 22
Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee today said India was ready to resume dialogue with Pakistan the moment it put a complete stop to its cross-border terrorism against India.

Mr Vajpayee, however, avoided a direct answer to whether his government could do any business with the Gen Pervez Musharraf regime of Pakistan and merely remarked: It all depends on how the situation develops further. If Pakistan stops cross-border terrorism today, we are willing to resume the dialogue process with them tomorrow.

A cheerful and confident-looking Mr Vajpayee, while talking to reporters accompanying him to the 13th Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Malaysia, said India had apprised its friends of its stand vis-a-vis Pakistan.

It was vintage Vajpayee who floored the mediapersons with his wit and humour. In response to a question whether in Kuala Lumpur he would shake hands with General Musharraf, he quipped: “Haath hi mila sakta hoon, pair to mila nahin sakta (I can only shake hands with him. Can’t shake feet with him)”. Then quickly he said, Pair se mera matlab kadam tha “(By saying feet I actually meant steps)”, giving the whole thing an idiomatic twist as “kadam milana” in Hindi — to walk or work in tandem.

On the forthcoming elections in Himachal Pradesh, Mr Vajpayee said both the BJP and the Congress were evenly poised, though earlier the Congress was ahead of the BJP.

Responding to a question on the Congress poster campaign against him in which the Congress insinuation was that Mr Vajpayee ate beef the posters said Gai hamari mata hai, Atal Behari khata hai — the Prime Minister said it was “cheap” on the part of the Congress to take the campaign to such depths. He remarked the issue here was not to what depths the election campaign in the Capital was plummeting, but what depths the Congress had started touching.