New Delhi, Dec 28 (IANS) Disapproving of his junior minister Shashi Tharoor airing his differences with government policy in public, External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna Monday said the government will go by the home ministry’s guidelines and stressed that differences over issues should not be aired in public.
“We have gone along with home ministry on the visa issue,” Krishna told reporters when asked about Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor’s remarks on Twitter, a popular social networking site, criticising the government for its new visa regulations.

New entry regulations were introduced Nov 4 in the wake of disclosures about the abuse of tourist visas by 26/11 suspect David Coleman Headley.

The home ministry issued a directive that foreign nationals having a long-term multi-entry Indian tourist visa must have a mandatory two-month gap between two visits. The new guidelines elicited protests from the US and British governments.

“Well, these issues are not to be discussed in public,” Krishna said.

“If there are any perceptions, they should be sorted out within the four walls of the two ministries,” he said.

In his tweets, Tharoor questioned whether the new visa restriction would actually strengthen security as the “26/11 killers had no visas”.

“My only role is to object to them strongly. MEA (ministry of external affairs) officials are discussing them with MoHA (ministry of home affairs) which imposed them.”

On Dec 26, Tharoor said: “Issue is not security vs (versus) tourism, but whether visa restrictions protect our security. 26/11 killers had no visas.”

Tharoor had previously run into problems over his freewheeling remarks on Twitter and was counselled by both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi to be more discrete in his public comments since he was a minister in the government.

-Indo-Asian News Service

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