Lashing out at the BJP for accusing the UPA government of being guided by the U.S., Congress said the party has protected the country’s supreme national interests all these years from 1947 onwards.
“Congress has protected India’s supreme national interest,” party spokesman Manish Tewari told reporters here on the charges of the BJP made on Tuesday.
Tewari said that in 1947, when the country was not even independent, Jawaharlal Nehru convened a conference of Asian countries in New Delhi to raise voice against colonialism.
He said during the cold war, India took the initiative and showed the way for non—alignment and in 1965 and 1971, the same Congress government protected India’s supreme national interest by emerging victorious in the war with Pakistan.
The spokesman noted that Congress strengthened India’s diplomacy and referred to the end of “nuclear apartheid” under the Congress—led UPA government in 2008.
Asking BJP to “introspect”, Tewari said when the country carried out the nuclear tests in 1998, the then BJP government wrote a letter to the U.S. and became a laughing stock of the world.
He said in September 1998, the then BJP Prime Minister during a visit to New York talked about the unilateral signing of the CTBT and after 9/11, the same government offered to give the U.S. a unilateral offer of a military base.
BJP spokesperson Rajiv Pratap Rudy had yesterday said the party was “disappointed” to note that the UPA regime was very keen on getting the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damages Bill through “to please” the U.S.
“Under pressure, the Prime Minister has mortgaged India’s foreign policy to the U.S.,” Rudy had said.
