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Right keeps Left, wants govt to dump N-deal
NEW DELHI: Domestic pressure against the Indo-US nuclear agreement seems to be building up with the BJP on Sunday demanding that the UPA government “reject” the US Senate Act enabling civil nuclear co-operation between the two countries. Adopting a hard stance that was indicative of the BJP’s attitude to the nuclear agreement, senior party leaders said that such a deal “cannot bind India in future”.
On their part, though the Left parties have not yet formally voiced their opinion on the final version of the Act passed by Congress, the UPA’s outside supporters have indicated that the points which they objected to, seem to have made it to the final version as well.
The BJP, for its part, has demanded a full-fledged discussion on the US Act in Parliament. “If they (the UPA government) go ahead, we will go to the people and put forward the fact that the Vajpayee government had taken the nuclear weapons programme ahead, but this government has surrendered it to the United States,” BJP leader and former Union minister Yashwant Sinha said.
A statement setting out the BJP’s objections said: “The Act, as passed by the US legislature, is not acceptable to the BJP. Its provisions fly in the face of the assurances given by the prime minister to Parliament from time to time.” The saffron party echoed the Left’s fears that “the Act seriously compromises the independence of our foreign policy. India is not just to toe the line of the US with regard to Iran, it is being offered this cooperation on the ground that its foreign policy will be ‘congruent’ with that of the US”.
The BJP highlighted that the Act was aimed at “capping, rolling back and eventually eliminating India’s nuclear weapons capability” by imposing conditionlities that are worse than those in the NPT and the CTBT. It said an agreement based on such an Act would “stymie” India’s technological advancement in this critical area. The party, as if to buttress its point, said that a section of nuclear scientists had opposed the deal, too.
Fielding a volley of questions, senior BJP leader Arun Shourie said the “long nuclear winter” that this deal was supposed to end had actually worked well for India and consequently, the scientific establishment had been able to develop the country’s nuclear capability. Terming the US Act “more unequal than ever before”, the BJP said the “principle of parity” that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had repeatedly stressed has been “abandoned”.
The opposition party’s main objections to the US act were: certification and reporting requirements continue to be rigorous; no assurance of uninterrupted fuel supplies even for Indian civilian reactors; the moratorium on the production of fissile material remains a key US objective and the US retains the right to carry out its own end-use verification, in addition to IAEA inspections.
The BJP also brought up provisions in the US Act prohibiting India to reprocess the used fuel or ship it back to the US unless approved by the US Congress.
The party said India’s nuclear weapons programme would be subjected to “intrusive US scrutiny” and India would be forced to adhere to obligations of international protocols — Proliferation Security Initiative, the Australia Group and the Wassenaar Arrangement — regarding which the PM himself had reservations, and the obligations India had refused to accept in the past.
“The assertion of the government that through the July 18, 2005 statement, it had ensured that India would obtain the same rights as other states like the US is no nowhere in the discussions and legislation,” the statement said.
This is getting seriously frustrating.... fk the BJP, fk the commies....
) from Congress had bargained harder? YES. Would BJP have done significantly better or different? HELL NO!
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