Oppn keeps up the rhetoric

NEW DELHI: The lifting of the global ban on nuclear trade with India by the 45-country Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG) may have taken the wind out of the opposition parties’ campaign against the Manmohan Singh government, but they are still planning to go ahead with their drive against the Centre.

Leaders of the Left, BSP, and TDP plan to call on President Pratibha D Patil to demand an early session of Parliament to discuss the latest disclosures from the US on the deal, failing which they have sought dismissal of the UPA government.

BSP chief Mayawati said her party was writing to the president “to direct the Manmohan Singh government to immediately convene a session of Parliament to discuss the nuclear issue in the wake of the disclosures.

“The alarming revelation of clauses otherwise hidden so far has put the Congress-led government on a sticky wicket... it is so scared that it is not convening the session of Parliament. It is for the first time in the history of India that the winter session has not been called and the monsoon session is being convened in October-November.”

The BJP reacted sharply to the NSG waiver, claiming that the country had forsaken its historic stand and fallen into the nuclear non-proliferation trap.

BJP vice-president Yashwant Sinha called it “a day of historic shame” when the legacy of Indira Gandhi and Atal Bihari Vajpayee was “compromised for ever”.

“India has forever lost the right to conduct nuclear tests,” the former external affairs minister said. “The NSG waiver has come after so many deliberations... obviously there have been giveaways by India.”

The two-day CPI(M) politburo meeting, which began in New Delhi on Saturday, also discussed the nuclear issue, among other things. But a source said the party would react to the NSG waiver later.