UPA lack moral authority to sign nuke deal with US : Advani

Pune, Mar 5: Coming down heavily on the UPA government, leader of the Opposition L K Advani has said that it had no moral authority to sign the nuclear deal with US President George Bush as its major ally staged violent protests on the latter's visit to India.

Mr Advani was here yesterday to deliver a lecture ''Future of Indian Politics'', organised by MIT-School Of Government.

He said, ''Has it ever happened in the history of India or in the history of any democratic country where the Prime Minister signed a major agreement of far-reaching consequences with the President of a major foreign power while its own ally was holding raucous street demonstrations against the visitor, who is the guest of their own government? The only word I can think of describing this deal is bizarre.'' Criticising the Left parties, the senior BJP leader said, ''If you are so violently opposed to an important foreign initiative of the government and also opposed to many other policies, why are you continuing with the charade of supporting this government?'' Mr Advani in his lecture dwelled on democracy and said it could succeed if there was accountability and tolerance for dissent and different points of view.

He expressed concern over the corruption and criminalisation of politics and said that the clean-up had to begin from the top, citing an example of a book in the history of the House of Commons in the United Kingdom, where it was mentioned that local representatives bought and auctioned their constituencies at a high price, and the UK today talked of transparency, clean and corruption-free rule. If it happened there, it could happen here also.''

UNI