By IANS
New Delhi : Defending the India-US civil nuclear deal, Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal said Tuesday that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had extracted the best possible deal for the country.
Participating in the marathon debate on the nuclear deal in the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of parliament, Sibal replied at length to the criticism made by the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as well as the Left parties that support the government from outside.
He insisted the prime minister had extracted the “best possible deal” for India, giving the country more than what the US has been given to any other nation, including China.
While dismissing the Left objections to the deal as part of its “ideological” opposition to the US, the senior Congress leader targeted Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha, two BJP campaigners against the deal who had both spoken earlier in the day.
“They oppose it because they want to be a part of it,” said Sibal.
He recalled that former prime minister Atal Bihar Vajpayee of BJP had in 1998 unilaterally announced that India will not conduct any more tests. “Then what is the opposition now?” he wondered.
Sibal referred to Sinha’s assertion that if the BJP came to power it would renegotiate the deal and asked, “What is it you want to renegotiate? Do you want the US to say that India can have as many tests as they want? Then say so.”
He also dismissed the BJP and Left suggestion that the deal could result in India becoming subservient to the US foreign policy.
“India is too big and too proud to be subjugated by the US foreign policy,” he said.
He told the Left members, “We are against your ideology but we appreciate your stand”, adding that the BJP had different ideologies when it is in power and when it is not.