Even if accepted in NSG, India will be the loser: Yashwant Sinha

Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Yashwant Sinha on Sunday said India would be the “loser” even if it was now accepted into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Yashwant Sinha on Sunday said India would be the “loser” even if it was now accepted into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

Senior BJP leader and former finance minister Yashwant Sinha said the government was being “regularly misguided” by some people on the importance of an entry into the NSG.(Sonu Mehta/HT file)

“Would like to say strongly that India must not accept NSG membership, there is no need to go there as an applicant,” he said. “If today we get the NSG membership, we will be the ‘loser’. It will be a loss for us, no benefit.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been relentlessly pursuing a seat on the 48-nation group, marshalling support across the world, including from the US. However, China, an NSG member, scuttled India’s chances by demanding raising concerns over the induction of non-nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty signees.

Sinha said the government was being “regularly misguided” by some people on the importance of an entry into the NSG.

The former finance minister also decried India’s Pakistan policy a day after eight soldiers were killed in an ambush by terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama district.

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Twenty-two others were injured in the attack, and two militants carrying AK-47s and hand grenades were shot dead in retaliatory firing. In a statement to a local news agency, Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba’s spokesperson Abdullah Ghaznavi said two members of its suicide squad carried out the attack.

“If it is true that the two terrorists killed [on Saturday] were Pakistanis then it’s clear that it’s a war-like situation between India and Pakistan,” Sinha told ANI. “With great sadness I would like to say that our government’s Pakistan policy has completely failed.”

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An official said the militants attacked the Srinagar-bound three-vehicle CRPF convoy near Frestbal in Pampore town at around 5:50 pm, choosing a sharp bend on the Jammu-Srinagar highway to ambush the convoy. The militants fired intensely at one bus, leading to the high number of causalities.

“Jitna hum iss neeti par chalna chorengey, utna Bharat ke liye achcha hoga (The more we move away from this policy, the better it would be for India),” Sinha said about the government’s allegedly lenient policy towards Pakistan.