Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan announced on Friday that India has decided to boycott the Commonwealth Speakers’ conference to be held in Islamabad in protest against Pakistan’s decision not to invite the Speaker of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly.
“Today, the Vidhan Sabha members gathered for a meeting and we have decided that if the J&K speaker will not get invitation or the venue is changed, then India will not attend the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) meet in Pakistan,” Mahajan told the media here.
"It is the basic rule that in whichever country the meeting takes place, the host country gives invitation. When we asked Pakistan the reason for their action they gave some pretext of an old event from 1951-1957 which is not even relevant anymore.” Pakistan invited representatives of all the the Indian states to the conference starting on September 30 but no such invitation was sent to the Jammu and Kashmir Speaker Kavinder Gupta.
This controversy has come around the time of the twin terror attacks in Gurdaspur and Udhampur for which Pakistan has been blamed. On Thursday, Home Minister Rajnath Singh condemned the Udhampur terror attack and accused Pakistan of trying to threaten the peace in Jammu and Kashmir.