New Delhi: The all-party delegation visiting Jammu and Kashmir will comprise senior leaders from various parties, including P Chidambaram, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley, according high stature to the team that will meet a cross section of the society there.
The delegation, that will be visiting Kashmir and Jammu on Monday and Tuesday, respectively, is expected to meet leaders from various political parties and others to seek
their views on ending the three-month-long turmoil in the state in which over 80 people have been killed.
The Congress decided to send Chidambaram as also Pawan Kumar Bansal as part of the delegation. The decision was taken at a meeting held by Congress chief Sonia Gandhi with senior leaders Pranab Mukherjee, Chidambaram, A K Antony, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Prithviraj Chavan and Saifuddin Soz, party sources said.
Bansal, who is Parliamentary Affairs Minister, has written to various other political parties to nominate representatives who would be part of the delegation. Responding to this, several parties including BJP, Samajwadi Party, DMK, CPI(M), CPI, BSP, LJP, Trinamool Congress, NCP, RJD, Shiromani Akali Dal and RLD have confirmed their participation.
From BJP, Swaraj and Jiatley, Leaders of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha will join the delegation. Others who have sent in their confirmations include Mulayam Singh Yadav (SP), T R Baalu (DMK), Basudeb Acharia (CPI-M), Gurudas Dasgupta (CPI), Ramvilas Paswan (LJP), Dinesh Trivedi (Trinamool), E Ahamed (Indian Union Muslim League), Govind Rao Adik (NCP), Asaduddin Owaisi (AIMIM), Rattan Singh
Ajnala (SAD), Narhari Mahato (Forward Bloc) and Prasanto Majumdar (RSP).
The decision to send the delegation was taken at an all-party meeting convened by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday last to discuss the volatile situation in Jammu and
Kashmir.
The delegation is expected to meet leaders of political parties and various other sections of the society. The delegation will gather various shades of opinion on the current situation in the state and ways to deal with it.
"The feedback received from the all-party delegation would form an important input into the Government`s evolving response on various issues relating to Jammu and Kashmir," a
statement issued after the all-party meeting said.
PTI
