By IANS
New Delhi : The Rajya Sabha will discuss the contentious India-US civilian nuclear deal Tuesday, with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former external affairs minister Yashwant Sinha initiating the discussion.
Union Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Suresh Pachauri told IANS Monday: “In the draw of lots, Yashwant Sinha’s motion has come up.”
The Lok Sabha discussed the deal on Nov 28 and now the Rajya Sabha will take it up with leading critics in the BJP, namely Sinha and Arun Shourie, batting for their party.
Sinha and Shourie have led the BJP’s campaign against the government on the deal.
However, the BJP’s desire to have Prime Minister Manmohan Singh speak on the issue and the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s insistence on fielding External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee instead may cause some acrimony.
BJP senior leader Sushma Swaraj told newspersons: “We will demand that the prime minister reply or at least make an intervention.”
She added, “Our demand is valid because if the prime minister is so far removed from this discussion then why did we have to wait all these days for him to return from his foreign tour to hold a discussion on the deal.”
It has to be seen whom the Left Front, which supports the government but opposes the deal, chooses to present its case.
Most vocal critics of the deal in the Left, including Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) Politburo members Sitaram Yechury and Brinda Karat, Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) general secretary Abani Roy and Communist Party of India (CPI) national secretary D. Raja, are members of the Rajya Sabha.
Yet political observers do not expect the debate to be markedly different from the one in the Lok Sabha.
A surprising element of the Lok Sabha debate was Ram Gopal Yadav of the Samajwadi Party taking a sympathetic view of the deal. It remains to be seen if party general secretary Amar Singh will take a similar view in the Rajya Sabha.