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New Delhi: The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday endorsed India's anti-Iran vote with an eye on splitting the ruling coalition partners. With the Left Front and the Samajwadi Party, both supporting the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government from outside, expressing their anguish at India's anti-Iran vote at the IAEA, the BJP decided to back the government. The BJP parliamentary party executive took a stand at a meeting yesterday that it was not in India's interest to see Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. The BJP's stand has created confusion in the treasury benches since the government had on Monday agreed to the Left demand to debate the issue in the parliament during the budget session beginning tomorrow.
The Left and the Congress that heads the 12-party UPA do not want to be seen as being supported by the BJP in their drastically opposing stands. Consequently the Iran debate may turn out to be mild in nature with the government in all likelihood clubbing the Iran debate with the motion of thanks on the President's address to both Houses of Parliament. The BJP parliamentary party executive meeting, chaired by former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, came to the conclusion that India cannot ignore or minimise the strategic implications and adverse consequences of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. Yet, the party lost no time in cornering the government and its Left allies by accusing the government of gross mismanagement of India's vote on the Iran issue. "It is a humiliating experience for the country to witness the manner in which the government and the Communists have permitted themselves to be pressurised into voting in a particular manner ... it has generated an impression that India had surrendered its sovereign rights to take decisions on issues of national importance," the resolution adopted at the meeting said. The BJP thereafter sounded as if supporting the Left by accusing the government of failing to hold broad-based consultations. Incidentally the Left parties had on Monday accused the UPA of taking unilateral decisions on matters of national importance. No compromise on national security The opposition BJP has come down heavily on the ruling coalition over the Indo-US nuclear deal. The BJP parliamentary party has cautioned the government against compromising the country's national security interests. Welcoming the US President George W. Bush's proposed visit to the country next month, the party observed that India should not take any step that could deny it the needed flexibility of maintaining a minimum credible nuclear deterrent. It expressed apprehensions that the ongoing Indo-US nuclear deal may lead to a compromise on national security issues. The BJP wants New Delhi to use the Bush visit to put Indo-US ties back on a balanced, equal and even keel rather than India becoming an appendage of the United States.
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