'Non-NDA parties must petition on Indo-US N-deal'

New Delhi, Aug 16: In a bid to mount pressure on the government against the Indo-US nuclear deal, the BJP is asking non-NDA parties to parade their MPs before the President and submit a petition to place their concerns about the proposed deal which ''seeks to cap the nuclear weapons capability''.

Deputy leader of the BJP in Lok Sabha and parliamentary party spokesman Vijay Kumar Malhotra said the NDA had shown President A P J Abdul Kalam that 174 MPs were against the proposed deal and now the country's top scientists too have expressed themselves against inking of the deal.

He said President A P J Abdul Kalam seems to be against the nuclear deal going by the ''body language'' and the opposition is coming from the country's top nuclear scientists too. The parties who see the writing on the wall could not afford to be mute spectators to the ''shameful acts of surrender'', he said.

''If all the MPs who are ranged against the deal too represent to the President it will clearly demonstrate that the sense of the House is against the deal,'' Mr Malhotra explained. The logic of BJP's behind-the-scene moves is to rope in MPs belonging to parties like AIADMK, DMK, Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party so that the ruling UPA will be isolated, having to sustain on the core support from Congress, Communists and Rashtriya Janata Dal parties, he said.

He conceded that the BJP's move to secure the support of the Left parties on the nuclear issue had not yielded results as they were not willing to vote against the government in the event of a showdown. ''At the best they may issue embarrassing statements in the House,'' Mr Malhotra said.

He said there was no sense of desperation to secure the US support for the sake of nuclear fuel for its civilian projects and the country could mop up resources to build power facilities from other sources of energy--hydro, thermal and renewable sources of energy to bridge the demand and supply. ''There is no need for surrendering national interest for the sake of this deal which did not treat India at par with the other nuclear weapons states.'' He said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's words like the government would protect ''national interests'' at all costs mean ''nothing'' because the dice was heavily loaded against India.

The issue will come up in Rajya Sabha and the expectations are that matters will come to an end once the Prime Minister replied to the discussions. This is the reason the parties will have to do something more than articulating their views against the deal in Parliament, Mr Malhotra said.

UNI

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