Sonia meets Pranab, Antony, discusses ties with Pak, US

In a sudden development, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday sought the views of senior Congress leaders, over the recent diplomatic developments involving Pakistan and United States.

Gandhi, after hearing Bharatiya Janata Party's opposition to the End-Use Monitoring Agreement with the US, decided to seek the opinion of senior Congress leaders about the issue.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi is understood to have discussed the Indo-Pak join statement, issued at the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement summit, and the defence agreement with the US on the EUMA, with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Defence Minister A K Antony in her Parliament office on Wednesday.

Sources said the two leaders were called for the discussions in view of media reports about Mukherjee's reservations on the Indo-Pak statement and the Defence Ministry's misgivings about being bypassed in the EUMA deal.

Gandhi reportedly told the two senior leaders that such reports provided additional leverage to the Opposition to criticise the government. Sonia asked the two leaders to stand by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on both initiatives and dispel the notion that the Congress had distanced itself from the government on such issues.

However, the gag order on Congress spokespersons continued with Jayanthi
Natarajan reiterating at the daily press  briefing that the party has nothing more to add to what the prime minister has already said in the Parliament.