Thursday, July 10, 2008

BJP objects to the nuclear sell-out

jul 9th, 2008

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Harsh Ray


PRESS STATEMENT
BY
Shri L.K. Advani
MP, Leader of the Opposition (Lok Sabha)

Shri Jaswant Singh
MP, Leader of the Opposition (Rajya Sabha)

New Delhi : July 05, 2008

 

For the past 18 months or so governance in India has come to standstill. The economy is floundering; prices escalating daily; terrorists attacking and imperiling the life and limb of innocent civilians routinely; Maoist threats proliferating through the veins and arteries of India; our entire neighbourhood turbulent, but in response to all these challenges the UPA stops governing. The Prime Minister goes into a sulk for 4 days, abandoning all his responsibilities. The names of replacements to Dr. Manmohan Singh begin crowding news columns.

 

All this as a consequence of an ill conceived, ill timed, ill negotiated and hastily pushed through-Nuclear Agreement with the U.S. administration.

 

The UPA has supinely now consented to be pushed into agreeing to this 'deal', at a pace dictated by the US, and at their domestic convenience.

 

Further, to keep the US establishment happy, propriety, principles of governance, probity in public life all have been abandoned. Unprincipled deals of convenience bring yesterday's adversaries as today's allies. This diminishes governance in the country.

 

That is why the BJP reiterates:

Never in the past 60 years of our independent existence has any government done as much harm to our national strategic autonomy as has this Congress led UPA;

 

No government has behaved as timidly as the UPA, whether to PRC or to the USA;

 

No government has ever been hustled into acting on an issue of vital national importance, at a pace dictated entirely by the interlocutors, in this instance the United States of America.

 

This Congress led arrangement can now no longer call itself either a United Progressive Alliance or even a government.

 

The UPA is now a charade, play acting at being the government, it has neither the needed majority nor the required moral authority to trade the future of many generations of Indians to come.

 

Energy, the need for it in a sustainable, environmentally benign manner is our concern too. Offering just 3 to 5% additional nuclear energy, some 25 to 30 years from now, at the cost of roughly 125-130 billion, at today's price, and for this to trade the country's 'strategic autonomy is not acceptable.

 

As the UPA is now a minority, it has no right to execute any binding, international agreements. Therefore, the BJP demands that government must immediately now call the Parliament into session and take it fully into confidence. It must obtain the Parliament's approval by first obtaining a 'Vote of Confidence' from the House.

 

Further, the PM must explain, as indeed must the Congress, as to what reasons compel them to rush the country into this agreement, in such desperate haste?

 

The country must take note all the many wrongs that this Congress led UPA commits and has committed. This government has no right to continue in office now. Let the country decide afresh.

 



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