The government faced a barrage of spirited criticism on the Indo-US nuclear deal on Tuesday, both from the Left and Right.
NEW DELHI: The government faced a barrage of spirited criticism on the Indo-US nuclear deal on Tuesday, both from the Left and Right, as also from other smaller groups in the Rajya Sabha (RS). An overwhelming majority in the House was clearly against the deal.
In the process, the level of debate deteriorated to personal attacks with speakers, mainly between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, railway minister Lalu Prasad and former external affairs minister Yashwant Sinha, trying to prove their points.
The sharpness of the attack on the government in the Upper House of Parliament was much more than in the Lok Sabha, which discussed the issue last week.
The Samajwadi Party, for instance, was particularly keen to dispel the impression that it was going soft on the deal. Its leader Amar Singh did everything to send the message across that he was as much opposed to it as the Left parties were.
The UPA government’s ally, the Left, charged that the government had not only deviated from the agreed common minimum programme (CMP), but had also abandoned the aam admi plank by signing the deal for expensive nuclear energy.
CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury held the threat of reconsidering support to the government if it went ahead with the deal. “My agenda is not to see that this government stays.
My agenda is to see that this deal is not there. All those who considered themselves to be friends of the American President have fallen.
See what happened to British, Australian, Japanese and Italian prime ministers, I would not want the same fate to befall on this government. We cannot allow the UPA to proceed on an agenda set by the NDA government.”
Yechury also sought to clarify that the Left opposition to the deal was not ideological, nor was the CPI(M) anti-American.
“We are not anti-American. On the contrary, we are pro-American. A survey conducted in the US says 64 per cent of their people do not approve of President George W Bush. Thus, our position and American people’s position is the same,” he said.
The debate became a forum for personalised attacks when BJP leader Yashwant Sinha charged that the government was yielding to US pressure on a variety of issues.
US pressure resulted in the non-signing of the nuclear reactor deal with Russia, he said, adding that because of these factors, his Russian counterpart did not meet external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee on his visit and the Prime Minister’s own visit to that country was only for 28 hours.
The Prime Minister responded by saying, “This is false propaganda being spread by you. It’s true that the deal with Russia was ready but it could be signed only after India had got the IAEA approval and exemptions from the NSG.”
He then made a personal reference to Sinha, saying, “The Japanese finance minister did not meet you when you visited there as finance minister.”
Sinha shot back, “I was finance minister when you were economic advisor to the government.”
s_singh@dnaindia.net
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