BJP top brass debated fallout, nuanced its oppn

Aware there was a big disconnect between the party’s stated position on the Indo-US nuclear deal and its middle class constituency...

Aware there was a big disconnect between the party’s stated position on the Indo-US nuclear deal and its middle class constituency, the BJP has effected a subtle shift in its stand, making itself appear more receptive to the idea “without ceding the nationalist space”.

At a BJP core group meeting about a month ago, it was senior leader M Venkaiah Naidu who said that the party’s position on the deal “was not going down well with its core constituency of middle class”. “Naidu implied that the BJP must not get overzealous like the Left in opposing the deal,” said a top source.

Party president Rajnath Singh and its deputy leader in Lok Sabha V K Malhotra saw merit in the argument. Party general secretary Arun Jaitley felt that the party’s position needed to be more “nuanced”. Senior leader Sushma Swaraj said the terms of reference of the nuclear debate in India were not the same as in the US (and “hence must be opposed”). All the leaders, however, said that India could not give up the right to conduct future nuclear tests.

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The party’s 11-member core group has Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L K Advani, Rajnath Singh, Jaswant Singh, Murli Manohar Joshi, Venkaiah Naidu, Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Ram Lal, Bal Apte and V K Malhotra as members.

“We felt that we have come a little too far in our opposition (to the deal). Yet we couldn’t have jettisoned the position formulated on the issue. Summing up the debate, Advani said that India cannot accept a ban on further nuclear tests but the party was okay with other provisions of the deal,” said a leader present at the meeting.

Speaking at a function in Pune last week, Advani said that “the party would not accept a ban on Pokhran-III” as it would compromise India’s position as a nuclear power. “Remove this ban in the agreement by renegotiating the deal and we will not have any objection,” he said. He had taken more or less the same line at an ASSOCHAM function on June 2: “We do not basically oppose the nuclear agreement… Our reservation is only on the written word that there should not be any further nuclear tests…”

Responding to the PM’s observations today that “our domestic politics have prevented us from going ahead with the nuclear deal”, Venkaiah Naidu said “the government should have evolved political consensus before going ahead with it”.

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“It is the Prime Minister and his party that is to be blamed for the present state of the nuclear deal. Although he is blaming the Opposition for the failure of the deal, his supposition is about the Left parties,” Naidu said.

The BJP had earlier stuck to the line that the “the deal is not acceptable in its present form”.

Former president A P J Abdul Kalam’s recent go-ahead for the deal too has had an effect on the BJP top brass. A senior leader, also present at the core group meeting, said after Kalam’s observations: “Are we bigger patriots then Kalam? Can we question his credentials on science and technology?”