BJP not anti-US, says Rajnath

BJP NATIONAL EXECUTIVE MEET

BJP President Rajnath Singh declared today that it was strategic issues and not blind anti-Americanism which guided BJP's opposition to the Indo-US civil nuclear agreement.

There may be uncertainty over whether L K Advani will be the BJP's prime ministerial candidate, but the party seems to have decided that his take on the Indo-US civil nuclear agreement will be the definitive stand of the BJP.

Singh, in his speech to the party's National Executive, made it clear that the BJP's opposition to the nuclear deal "was not opposition for the sake of opposition, nor is it virulent ant-Americanism of the Left Front."

"The BJP will neither oppose nor support any country-based prejudice," he said. Advani's articulation of the same stand last month had stunned the BJP which felt that it had not been warned about the soft US line while arguing the point in Parliament. In fact, Singh elaborated on the fact that it was under former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's leadership that "the foundations were laid for a paradigm shift that ushered in the golden era of the relationship between the US and India." He reiterated the party's demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on the deal.

The underlying theme of the National Executive is stock taking in the event of mid-term polls. Singh declared that the Congress-led UPA government was in an effective minority. "The government has lost the confidence of the people, the confidence of its allies and lost the confidence of the parties which are supporting it from outside. If this government does not have the courage to face Parliament, then it should quit office and approach the people," he said.