Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Lal Kishenchand Advani on Tuesday asked whether Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will seek a Parliamentary consensus before he signs the India-United States nuclear deal.
"Mr Prime Minister, do you see any resistance coming forward from your allies and the opposition in putting the new India-US policy to practice? And will you seek a parliamentary consensus or approval to the new direction you seem to be taking in foreign policy?" he asked.
He asked why Dr Singh is bent on going ahead with the deal when it when it is obvious that there is no broad national consensus?
Advani also asked why Dr Singh is he not renegotiating the deal to secure consensual support in Parliament, which he himself had said is sovereign.
Advani asserted that if his party is returned to power in the next general elections then it would scrap the deal and renegotiate with the US government.
Advani said US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns, the main American negotiator of the agreement, was very candid when he said on July 27, soon after the 123 agreement was concluded: "This deal brings India back into the non-proliferation mainstream in a way it was never before." In other words, by making India enter the NPT regime through the backdoor, the US has succeeded in getting Dr Singh do something which every Indian PM since Indira Gandhi had opposed, Advani said.
