BJP flays UPA government on Indo-US Civil N agreement

New Delhi, Apr 21: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today flayed the Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement as ''very costly, ill-assessed and imbalanced,'' and demanded explanation from the Manmohan Singh government on several aspects of the deal saying it had resulted in ''significant erosion'' of India's strategic space.

Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha and former External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh said at a crowded press conference here that the agreement, designed by the UPA government and all its allies, was not in accord with India's national interest.

''What the government has offered to the US, results in a significant erosion of our strategic space, an abandoning of our autonomy of action, placing 90 per cent of our nuclear plants on surveillance by an intrusive IAEA regime, and all this for just about eight per cent of of our energy requirements of around (the year) 2025 which too, will become operational (in about 15-20 years) only if all goes well. This is a very costly, ill-advised and an imbalanced agreement,'' he said.

Mr Jaswant Singh has also written a letter to the Prime Minister seeking certain clarifications about the deal.

However, there has not been any reply so far.

Refuting the governments assertion that under the agreement, India would not be signing the CTBT through backdoor, Mr Jaswant Singh said in reply to a question that ''the agreement would prohibit any kind of nuclear testing by India. The government should clarify (on this issue) and take the country into confidence.'' He said the government had explained that it was not accepting the CTBT in disguise. But the government had affirmed its commitment to the July 18 statement.

''Will India thereby have to foresake all nucleaar testing for always ? Does the US have any such corresponding obligation with us ? Further, does this not amount to capping our programme ? And does it not also cripple all our future scientific developments in the nuclear field...? he asked.

UNI