The Congress party, ruling NDA's main opposition in Parliament, is going to play a larger role in preparing India's strategy for next month's World Trade Organisation ministerial meeting in Cancun.
While Commerce and Industry Minister Arun Jaitley held first round parleys with Congress leaders Manmohan Singh and Pranab Mukherjee, more such deliberations are proposed till September 7, when the official delegation leaves for Mexico.
Mukherjee told reporters after the meeting that today's talks were "general in nature".
Ministry officials said that Jaitley and the Congress leaders will discuss sector-specific strategies in the subsequent rounds.
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While one reason cited was the experience of the two leaders in handling multilateral trade talks, some sections were of the opinion that by holding talks with Congress leaders the Bharatiya Janata party will blunt any possible criticism in future, especially with assembly and general elections round the corner.
Singh was the finance minister in 1994 when the Uruguay Round agreements were signed in Marakesh. Mukherjee has also had a stint in the commerce ministry.
An official press release said that the Congress leaders agreed with Jaitley that the special areas of concern for India were agriculture and some of the Singapore issues, particularly investment.
They also said that as the situation evolved, they could be kept informed so that specific suggestions could be given on issues of particular importance in the key areas of the negotiations.
Today's deliberations were the first in the series of meetings with political parties planned by the government in the run-up to the Cancun ministerial. The minister is slated to meet Left Front leaders on Wednesday and BJP members on Thursday. Meetings with NDA allies and smaller parties are scheduled for next week.
Officials were, however, sceptical of the contributions that the Left parties and the smaller parties like the Samajwadi Party or Rashtriya Janata Dal could make in evolving the strategy.
While India's position on agriculture is fairly clear, the non agricultural market access talks are still evolving and the government has to wait for what the modalities of negotiations look like. India has made a case for special mechanisms to protect its interests on both issues.
Through the deliberations, the government will also try to gauge the extent to which it can bend on the Singapore issues -- investment, competition policy, transparency in government procurement and trade facilitation -- though it has maintained vehement opposition to the subjects.
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