UPA's nuke deal assurance patently false, misleading: BJP

Bangalore, Sept 13 (ANI): Appealing to all Indians to set the country free from th e"curse of the misrule of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government", the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday warned that the nation is in the midst of a crisis on nearly all fronts.

In passing a hard hitting political resolution on the second day of three-day Nationla Executive held here, BJP primarily targeted the Indo-US civil nuclear cooperation deal.

Reiterating the party's stand that the deal in its present form, "seriously compromises India's strategic sovereignty", the political resolution described Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's "many assurance in Parliament" as "patently false and misleading" as far as India's strategic interests were concerned.

"The text of the nuclear agreement and the statements of the Bush administration, establish that the UPA government has perpetrated a mega fraud on both the Parliament and the people of the country. None of the assurances that were given to the Parliament have been kept. All the assurances about "assured fuel supply", transfer of technology, etc. is patently misleading," he said.

"The BJP would like to clearly reiterate that any compromise on India's right to nuclear test is wholly unacceptable. The deal entails heavy costs in the event we go for test and obviously the UPA government has not properly negotiated our strategic interests," it added.

It further went to say that the waiver granted by the Nuclear Supplier Group (NSG) only worsened India's strategic interest. It said Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee's decision to announce a voluntary moratorium on further testing now becomes a binding obligation under the NSG waiver conditions.

Therefore, the BJP opine that in substance, any future test done in national interest would seriously impact nuclear commerce with any NSG member and this would have serious security implications. The country, it claimed, has lost the power to develop credible minimum nuclear deterrence.

As far as the nuclear energy is concerned, the political resolution said: "No one is clear at what cost it is going to come. The governmental projection is 2020-2025 by which time production may come full steam. Obviously, lacs of crores would be spent on installation of reactors and nuclear fuel, and because of the hostile environment in which we live, any future test consistent with our security requirements would lead to immediate stoppage and termination of all arrangements and wastage of money spent. This is an additional area of a very serious concern."

The nation and the people of the country would very soon realise the falsity of this claim, the BJP said.

It clarified that it had very good, friendly relations with the USA and was for a strategic partnership with the US, not strategic subservience, which the deal is about. (ANI)