Modi has embarrassed the country: Congress

"This kind of intense lobbying by Prime Minister Modi and his government..should have been done for UN Security Council membership."

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has embarrassed India by raising expectations about the possibility of the country becoming a member of the exclusive Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), the Congress said on Friday. In fact, the principal opposition party demanded an explanation from Mr Modi on what went wrong in the negotiations.

“It's high time Prime Minister Narendra Modi realises that diplomacy requires gravitas, depth and seriousness. He needs to realise diplomacy needs depth not public tamasha ,” senior Congress leader Anand Sharma said, adding, "The world saw the PM make a spectacle of himself and India. Now, India faces embarrassment unnecessarily.”

Show of desperation

“This kind of intense lobbying by Prime Minister Modi and his government..should have been done for UN Security Council membership… there was no need to show desperation that led India to be equated with Pakistan in the NSG case,” he continued.

Taking a dig, a tweet from the official account of the office of party vice-president Rahul Gandhi said: “NSG: How to lose a negotiation by Narendra Modi.”

The Congress also deployed former Maharashtra Chief Minister and MoS in Dr Manmohan Singh’s PMO, Prithviraj Chavan, to question India’s failure at Seoul.

The Congress, Mr. Chavan said, was looking forward to a positive outcome as it “would have been the culmination of the work started by the UPA, beginning with the July 2005 joint statement of President Bush and Dr. Manmohan Singh which opened up the possibility of nuclear cooperation with global powers and the United States in particular. This ultimately led to the historic 2008 decision of the NSG in its Plenary in August – September when an unconditional one time waiver was granted to India.”

Counters Sushma

The Congress also objected to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s statement that India had no objection to the entry of Pakistan into NSG, based on merit.

“This is absolutely shocking. The Congress vehemently opposes the equating of India and Pakistan… Pakistan's record of non-proliferation is deplorable…,” Mr Chavan said.

He also said he wanted to know whether the Prime Minister agreed with his Foreign Minister on this count.

The two Congress leaders were reacting to the plenary meeting of the 48-member Nuclear Suppliers Group ended on Friday in Seoul.