Monday, 10 March 2014

Yashwant Sinha questions nuclear seminar by ‘lame duck govt’

NEW DELHI: Senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday, asking him to call off or postpone a conference organized by Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis (IDSA) on nuclear non-proliferation for which the external affairs ministry has agreed to pay "Rs 80 lakh" since it is "ill-designed and ill timed," when the country is going for elections.

"You are head of a lame duck government. General elections are round the corner. We are likely to have a new government and new prime minister in less than three months from now. What then are you going to say in you inaugural address? Clearly you cannot make any policy statement ... in view of the election code of conduct. If you are going to make only a routine speech, then why spend such a large sum of money on a conference of this nature at this juncture," Sinha asked the PM and also forwarded the letter to the external affairs minister, the defence minister and IDSA.


Sinha's letter said he had seen the agenda of the seminar and the list of speakers who have been invited and was convinced that most of them were "known anti-India and non-proliferationists," adding, "They have not only been bashing India but have been actively working against our interests."


Questioning the purpose of the conference and hitting out at the PM's pet nuclear deal with the US signed by UPA-1 which BJP opposed, Sinha said, "Your so called landmark nuclear deal with the US has already come a cropper. Not a single new nuclear reactor has been imported into India, much less installed. Not a single watt of nuclear power has been added as a result of this nuclear deal but India is still bound by all the commitments it has made to the US in the infamous 123 Agreement as well as the commitments it has made to the IAEA."


He went on to ask the PM, "Is this conference another ploy to take India further along that dangerous path in the dying days if the UPA government?"


Sinha requested the PM to ask IDSA to "postpone this expensive seminar which is ill-designed and ill timed."






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