Mujahideen and Jamaat. As a result during a visit to Srinagar in April 2003,.Vajpayee insisted that Mehbooba should not be on the stage with him and Mufti Sayeed.
Brajesh Mishra as Principal Secretary to the PM and NSA “virtually ran the government”. He says Brajesh Mishra was more powerful than Home Minister LK Advani. He says Vajpayee readily acquiesced to this power arrangement.
Dulat recounts in detail how the Crisis Management Group in 1999 mishandled the hijack of IC 814. Dulat was a member of the CMG and head of RAW. He said they lacked focus and leadership and, therefore, were unable to give orders for the plane to be detained in Amritsar. They carried on debating and the plane flew away. He says the CMG “goofed” and bungled.
He recounts the fury and anger of Farooq Abdullah when he was informed that 3 terrorists had to be released as part of the IC 814 deal. He says Farooq ventilated his anger for 3 hours and then stormed off to meet Governor Saxena intending to resign. However, Governor Saxena calmed him down over 2 glasses of whisky and Farooq, eventually, accepted the situation and agreed to the release of terrorists.
Speaking about the Agra summit, Dulat says that a meeting LK Advani had with Gen Musharraf the night before soured the atmosphere. This is when Advani surprised Musharraf by asking for Dawood Ibrahim. This took Musharraf back and a shadow was cast thereafter on the Agra summit.
However, at Agra he was told by Brajesh Mishra that they were very close to agreement. As Mishra put it: “Yaar, hote-hote reh gaya … Ho gaya tha, who toh”. He said Vajpayee and Brajesh were palpably disappointed. Dulat also says that Ashraf Qazi, then Pakistani High Commissioner, told him that on three occasions Jaswant Singh had rung the Pakistanis to say a deal was done. But it never happened.
Vajpayee in 2004, after losing the elections, told him that the Gujarat killings of 2002 were “a mistake”. Vajpayee’s exact words were: “Woh hamare se galti hui”. Dulat says the pain and grief on Vajpayee’s face was clearly visible.