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BJP backs govt on Iran
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 14
Succumbing to the RSS pressure, the Opposition BJP today virtually endorsed the government’s vote against Iran at the IAEA meeting, saying it was not in India’s interest to have another nuclear neighbour in its vicinity.

But the party attacked the government for the “impression” that it has surrendered its sovereign rights to take decisions on key issues and “permitted to be hustled and pressured into voting in a particular manner”.

A statement after a meeting of the BJP Parliamentary Party executive, chaired by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, which discussed the issue, stopped short of coming out in open support of the Indian vote at IAEA, saying it was not in India’s interests to see Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.

“India can clearly neither ignore, nor minimise the strategic implications and adverse consequences of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. It was therefore patently in India’s interests to have been in the forefront of that vast majority of the international community questioning the many clandestine devices through which nuclear technology and material have been transferred to Iran from Pakistan and several other countries.

“These acquisitions are in clear violation of the obligations, and commitments under the Non-Proliferation Treaty plus all related safeguard provisions of it”, the party said.

Later, briefing reporters, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Jaswant Singh said: “The BJP is clear that it was not in national interest to have another nuclear weapon power in its neighbourhood but the casual manner in which it treated the issue raises doubts that the arrival of the conclusion was determined by the government at the prodding and pushing upon some consideration.”

Addressing a press conference here yesterday, RSS spokesperson Ram Madhav had said while it was not in India’s interests to have “more nuclear powers in our vicinity”, the government should have raised the issue of Pakistan’s involvement in Teheran’s nuclear programme.

Besides Vajpayee and Jaswant Singh, the BJP meeting today was attended by Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha L.K. Advani and other senior leaders including M. Venkaiah Naidu, Sushma Swaraj, Pramod Mahajan and V.K. Malhotra.

“It is a nationally humiliating experience thereafter for the country to witness the manner in which the UPA government and the Communists have permitted themselves to be hustled and pressured into voting in a particular manner. This has rightly but sadly generated an impression that India has surrendered its sovereign rights to take decisions on issues of national importance.

“The government and its allies the Communists are responsible for the shoddy state of affairs. Statements coming out of the US Congress, other decision makers in the US, and the US Ambassador to Delhi threatening India, have heightened suspicion that the US wishes to establish a hegemonistic relationship with India, not that of two sovereign equals”, the statement said.

Maintaining that India’s votes at the IAEA and statements from the US “raised apprehensions” about yet another demonstration of “unacceptable unilateralism” in the region, it said: “The BJP rejects this theory of unilateral actions outside the UN aegis.”