BJP says it will renegotiate nuclear deal if it comes to power

Amid increasing prospects of the Left withdrawing its support to the UPA Government, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and senior BJP leader Mr L.K. Advani on Saturday demanded that the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, should seek a vote of confidence in Parliament.

“The moment the Left parties withdraw support to the Government, it is incumbent on the Prime Minister to seek a vote of confidence in the Lok Sabha. The BJP demands that the Government must immediately call Parliament into session and take it fully into confidence,” Mr Advani said at a joint press conference along with Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Mr Jaswant Singh.

On the issue of the Indo-US nuclear deal, Mr Advani said: “The UPA has supinely now consented to be pushed to agreeing to this deal, at a pace dictated by the US and at their domestic convenience.”

“As the UPA is now a minority, it has no right to execute any binding international agreements.. It must obtain Parliament’s approval by first obtaining a vote of confidence from the house,” they said in a joint statement. At the same time, Mr Advani said that the BJP favoured a strategic relationship with the US — the ties between the two large democracies needed to be more than friendly. He maintained that the BJP, if elected to power, would renegotiate the deal to ensure that India “maintains” its strategic sovereignty and becomes an agreement between equals.

However, the Samajwadi Party clearly indicated that it would back the trial of strength in Parliament. Samajwadi General Secretary, Mr Amar Singh, said, “Communalism is a bigger threat than imperialism...if our friends from the Left want to defeat the Government with BSP and BJP, we don’t want to say anything. But we can’t do this work.” Though Mr Amar Singh, did not formally announce that his party has wrapped up a deal with the Congress on the nuclear energy issue, he said, “L.K. Advani is a bigger threat than George W, Bush.”

Meanwhile, CPI(M) General Secretary, Mr Prakash Karat, said India’s independent foreign policy would be in peril if the country went forward with the civil nuclear deal with the US. “Our independent foreign policy will be in peril if we go for defence and military cooperation, strategic and economic partnership and the civil nuclear deal with the US,” Mr Karat said, adding that “even if we produce 40,000 MW of nuclear energy in the next 15 to 20 years, it will not constitute more than 8 per cent of our power requirement.”