Top scientist attacks Left

A senior member of the Atomic Energy Commission has slammed the Left parties for their opposition to the Indo-US nuclear deal, saying they were only worried about their ideology and do not bother about the country’s GDP growth.

“It does not matter whether GDP growth suffers or not so long as they have their ideology," MR Srinivasan, also former Chairman of AEC, said in an address to the Rotary Club here last night. "Their main concern is India and the US are coming closer, especially in strategic terms, and they (left parties) think this is something they cannot stomach," he said.

According to him, while India needs to have good relations with China, it is not a good thing to have a strong China and a weak India in a long haul.

Srinivasan did not also spare the BJP. He said that it was Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the then Prime Minister of the BJP-led NDA coalition who announced soon after the 1998 Pokhran tests that India would observe voluntary moratorium on further tests and also made an announcement on a "no first use" of nuclear weapons.

First Published: Aug 29, 2007 01:24 IST