BJP asks PM if he had opposed nuke tests when FM

New Delhi, Aug 3: Throwing its weight fully behind belaguered Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Jaswant Singh on the 'mole' issue, the BJP today sought to know from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh whether he had opposed nuclear tests when Finance Minister in the Narasimha Rao government.

''We have documentary proof that Mr Singh had opposed India conducting any nuclear tests and under pressure from the US, all the Governments between 1980 and 1993 postponed tests even though all preparations were made for the same,'' BJP Parliamentary Party spokesman Vijay Kumar Malhotra asserted.

Maintaining that the 'mole' theory referred to by Mr Jaswant Singh in his recently-released book ''A Call to Honour'' was correct as the US had ''got all information about India's impending nuclear tests and pressurised India to abandon them,'' he said that Dr Singh, then Finance Minister, had advised Prime Minister Narasimha Rao that the economic situation of the country was bad and it should not go nuclear.

Even when the nuclear tests were conducted in 1999 during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee regime, the Congress as well as Congress President Sonia Gandhi had opposed it. Now again the Congress-led UPA was bowing to the US pressure, resulting into a lot of change in provisions of the Indo-US Nuclear pact.

''The Nuclear Pact, in its present form, is not acceptable to BJP,'' Prof Malhotra told mediapersons at a briefing in Parliament.

Responding to a question, the Deputy BJP Leader in the Lok Sabha ruled out removal of Mr Singh as Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, saying he had only recounted all that which had happened at that time in his book.

Noting that former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had told Parliament during the NDA regime about the postponement of nuclear tests twice by the previous government at the behest of the US, he said that the NDA, however, ensured that no information about the country's nuclear programme should reach the US as well as successfully conducting the tests, much to the chagrin of the US.

To another question about the former US ambassador Harry Barnes denying the mole story, Prof Malhotra said ''no country ever accepts that it has a mole in another country.'' The government could get the authenticity of the letter checked and even institute a probe into the whole issue by any agency, including CBI, he added

UNI