With the Left parties seeking greater attention to the Palestinian cause, it was left to new Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee to give broad hints that the strategic relationship with Israel would continue.‘‘We are running a coalition government and there will be divergence in views in a multi-party government. But when we run the government there will also be convergence of ideas. And I am sure that no party will advocate anything that could compromise with our national security,’’ said Mukherjee at an informal interaction with the media in South Block on Wednesday. Mukherjee also stated that the differences would be ironed out in the new Common Minimum Programme.Israel has emerged as the second-largest supplier of military hardware after Russia and has proved to be critical for India’s defence preparedness several times. During the Kargil War, and even during Operation Parakram, Israel rushed urgent supplies to the Indian Army. India has an on-going defence cooperation dialogue with Israel headed by the respective defence secretaries.Mukherjee also acknowledged that resources were scarce and there would be cutbacks. However, he promised that there would not be any compromise in defence preparedness and the issues would be much clearer when Finance Minister P. Chidambaram presents his budget in July. ‘‘There are some financial problems and the full budget is not ready so we will have to wait. But Congress chief Sonia Gandhi raised the issue of non-utilisation of funds during the no-confidence motion and we will take measures to ensure that there is proper budgeting of resources.’’Mukherjee remained non-committal on the re-opening of major defence deals but stated that if there were ‘‘specific charges’’ then some deals could be re-examined. However, Mukherjee insisted that the Opposition’s boycott of then-defence minister George Fernandes had ended with the collapse of the NDA government and it was ‘‘not against an individual but against a practice’’.Mukherjee also promised to maintain an ‘‘open mind’’ on the appointment of a Chief of Defence Staff. ‘‘I am in favour of the integration of the three services and I feel that we will be able to take a decision after I have studied the issue. I feel that institutional arrangements have to be made for the integration.’’ He promised to look into the grievances of senior IAF and Army officers who had approached the courts to challenge promotion policies of the three services.
