BJP, Left slam UPA post US position on N-deal

New Delhi: The Left and the BJP on Wednesday slammed the UPA government over the US stand, that fuel supplies to India will be stopped if it carries a nuclear test accusing it of "misleading the nation" over the controversial Indo-US atomic deal.

The government stood "completely exposed" and has compromised with the country's vital security interests, the two parties said as they closed ranks to take on the government on the eve of the crucial meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group(NSG) in Vienna.

Congress however chose to play down "disclosures" on the deal as "internal communication" between the US administration and the legislature.

"What the US administration or the US President communicates with the US Congress or a member of the US Congress is entirely their problem," Congress spokesperson Manish Tiwari said.

BJP and the Left said the note from the Bush administration to the Chairman of Foreign Relations Committee kept under wraps for nine months completely vindicated their stand that the 123 Agreement would prohibit India from conducting any future tests.

"Our stand is vindicated by the disclosure. UPA has betrayed the trust of the nation," said the Left, which withdrew support to the Manmohan Singh government over the nuke deal.

"The government should suspend all further moves to operationalise the anti-national nuclear deal," the CPI-M Politburo said, adding the government has compromised the country's vital security interests.

BJP vice-president Yashwant Sinha said the fresh evidence on the US position was a "complete embarrassment for the country."

Sinha said the communication made public in the US was not an ordinary communication.

"It is a very, very important communication which sets out the policy of the administration, the government in the US," he said.

"The most important thing is that the communication is nine months old...Government of India must have been aware of it," he added.

Sinha said the government had claimed that India will retain the right to test. "We were assured of constant fuel supply...we will be benefitted by sensitive nuclear technology."

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The BJP leader claimed that as per the communication, the moment India tests nuclear device, all co-operation and all supplies to India will be stopped.

BJP spokesperson Rajiv Pratap Rudy said the US position "vindicated BJP's stand that the 123 Agreement would compulsorily prohibit any future tests by India, a fact which has been vehemently opposed by the Prime Minister, both inside and outside Parliament."

"Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has pulled a bluff on the nation and even deceived Parliament. The very fact that the contents of the letter were not revealed for nine months with a ploy that the PM gets over the crisis of nuclear deal in India is nothing but a blatant betrayal," he charged.

The CPI-M politburo said "The Left parties had warned the UPA government about the provisions in the notes submitted to the UPA-Left Coordination Committee, which have now been vindicated by this disclosure.

"Each of the commitments made by the Prime Minister in Parliament have been violated," the statement said. CPI-M leader Brinda Karat accused the government of selling "lies" to the country over the nuke deal while D Raja of CPI said the Government has misled Parliament and the people of India.

Brinda Karat accused the "spin doctors" of the government of trying to "sell this lie" to the people of the country.

"And now that lie has been exposed for what it is. It is an extremely sorry state of affairs and it is a tragedy for this country that you accept that government of India can sell India so easily down the line," she said.

The CPI-M said proceeding with the nuclear deal will "mortgage" India's sovereignty and make the country's civilian nuclear programme "vulnerable to US blackmail for the next 40 years.

The CPI-M politburo said the 26-page correspondence between US State Department and members of the American Congress has revealed that the US has given no binding fuel supply assurance to the country.

The party also noted that there is no US consent to India's stockpiling of lifetime fuel reserves for safeguard power reactors.

"The government of India is partner of this great deception of the Indian people which the Bush administration has engineered because it knew what exactly it was doing,"Karat told reporters.

Karat alleged the government would have preferred that the disclosures remain secret.