The Hindu : National : Obstructing deal will erode energy security: Congress

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jun 29, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

National

National

Obstructing deal will erode energy security: Congress

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: The Congress on Saturday said the Left’s objections to the India-U.S. nuclear deal were “ideological, rather than rational.”

Reacting to a scathing article by Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat in the party organ, People’s Democracy, the Congress said: “At a time when developed countries are increasingly going back to nuclear energy [and looking to follow the example of France where 80 per cent of energy needs are met from nuclear power plants] as a relatively clean fuel option; we are endangering our economic growth prospects for short-term electoral prospects or due to blind ideological obduracy.”

AICC media committee chairman M. Veerappa Moily said in a written statement: “Managing inflation has no connection with going ahead with the nuclear deal and, if anything, obstructing the deal means that the nation’s energy security and its ability to withstand future oil price shocks would be further reduced. The Iran pipeline is not an alternative to the nuclear deal. And if Russia and America, China and Pakistan and China and Russia are all busy signing nuclear deals, should India forgo pursuing its interests?”

Reacting to Mr. Karat’s remark that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was plunging the country into a crisis with his renewed bid to take steps to operationalise the deal, Mr. Moily said Dr. Singh did not deserve such criticism.

He said the Congress was committed to the deal and the Prime Minister was part of the party. “The joint mechanism was a vehicle for reaching an understanding with the Left parties. We want the process to reach a rational decision.”

As for the BJP’s objections, Mr. Moily said it was “totally exposed” in opposing the deal. It was well known that the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government would have accepted a nuclear cooperation agreement much less beneficial than the present accord, he said.

The BJP’s “volte-face” was the latest in the long list of its “doublespeak.”

“The architecture for the present strategic alliance with the U.S. and the impetus to developing the alliance came during the six years of the NDA rule.”

Mr. Moily said that in 1999 for the first time India participated in an international military exchange training programme of the U.S. Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the then Prime Minister, A.B. Vajpayee, offered India’s military facilities to President George Bush in his country’s war on terrorism. The then Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, who visited the CIA headquarters to discuss security cooperation, now said opposing the nuclear deal was a question of suraksha (security) and swabhimaan (self-respect), as if reneging on an international agreement would enhance India’s stature.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National