‘Govt has walked into non-proliferation trap’

Opposition parties flayed the Govt for surrendering India’s foreign policy and walking into the nuclear non-proliferation trap laid by the United States, reports HT Political Bureau.

Opposition parties flayed the government for surrendering India’s foreign policy and walking into the nuclear non-proliferation trap laid by the United States.

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The criticism came soon after the government secured a waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group in Vienna on Saturday.

“India has forever lost the right to conduct nuclear tests. The NSG waiver has come after so many deliberations... obviously there have been give aways by India,” former External Affairs Minister and BJP leader Yashwant Sinha told reporters here.

He said NSG guidelines are as stiff as the Hyde Act. “The US has gone for the deal because it sees India as a lucrative market for nuclear energy,” Sinha said.

Commenting on the jubilation in the Congress, he said: “The Congress has said that the nuclear apartheid has ended. They are trying to discard the legacy of Indira Gandhi because the nuclear apartheid had started after the 1974 Pokhran nuclear test.”

The Left, which withdrew support to the UPA coalition over the nuclear deal, said the waiver was another example of the government surrendering India’s foreign policy.

CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury said the waiver was “neither clean nor unconditional” and that the development points to a “complete surrender” of India’s foreign policy.

“The very deal is bad for the country and the NSG waiver is another bad step,” Yechury said.

CPI leader D. Raja said, “Once the draft is made public, the country would come to know how much it has compromised.”

The Left and some other opposition leaders will be meeting President Pratibha Patil on Tuesday to seek a special session of Parliament to take up the nuclear deal.