By NNN-PTI
New Delhi : After three-and-a-half years in coalition at the Centre, the Congress has said it was not for sacrificing its political space forever and came out with full backing for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the Indo-US nuclear deal with party President Sonia Gandhi making it clear that it will not have any impact on the country’s strategic nuclear programme.
With Assembly elections in Gujarat scheduled next month, she attacked the BJP, saying Gandhian ideas, ideals and institutions “are under threat in our own country. They are under sustained assault in the state of his birth itself and in other BJP-ruled states.”
Gandhi did not spare the main opposition, accusing it of practising rpt practising “obstructive politics” by spurning offers of debate and discussions in Parliament.
“No words are strong enough to condemn the BJP’s attacks on our Prime Minister and on our party,” Gandhi told the delegates at the day-long AICC meeting, the first after the Hyderabad plenary in January last year.
With the Prime Minister by his side, Gandhi said she agreed with Singh’s assurance that the nuclear deal with the US would not have any impact on the country’s strategic nuclear programme but instead would fetch it the much-needed power for agriculture and industry and cities and towns, besides getting the precious fuel and new technology from several friendly countries.
She did not refer to the breakthrough in the impasse with the Left yesterday on approaching the IAEA, but acknowledged that there were differences with the “supporting parties” and pledged to evolve a consensus through discussions.