BJP-Left combination bizarre, says Chidambaram

“I ask the House to give a resounding vote of confidence to the Prime Minister,” he said amid thumping of desks by the treasury benches in a speech that was repeatedly interrupted by the Left parties, especially the CPI(M).

Amid cheers from the ruling side members, Chidambaram took barbs at the NDA and Left parties for coming together to vote against the government despite having diverse positions on the nuclear deal.

“The BJP and NDA seem to believe that nuclear isolation should end but no one is clear about the Left parties. Yet the two groups are voting together.”

“The NDA has no problem with the strategic relationship with the US. The Left parties have ideological opposition to it. Yet the two groups are voting together.

“The NDA believes in India becoming a nuclear weapon state. The Left parties have always opposed nuclear weaponisation. Yet the two parties are together.

“The NDA says if it comes to power, it will renegotiate the nuclear deal. The Left says it would do everything to scuttle the agreement forever. Yet they are voting together.

“I don’t think in the history of Parliament there is anything more bizarre than two disparate groups voting together,” the Finance Minister said in his spirited speech.

Attacking the NDA for opposing the deal, Chidambaram cited Vajpayee government’s efforts to forge a strategic partnership with the US and said the UPA government was only taking that dialogue forward.

“The question is do we want to come out of nuclear isolation,” he asked the BJP benches.

On BJP’s contention that the nuclear deal will restrain India from conducting any further tests, he referred to the speech by then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the UN after the 1998 nuclear tests when he announced a voluntary moratorium on tests which amounted to de jure acceptance of provisions of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

Vajpayee, he said, had even offered to have discussions on the signing of the CTBT.

The former Prime Minister had also, in a speech in Parliament in 1999, had said the country did not need to conduct any further tests as scientists did not feel the requirement.

The voluntary moratorium also did not restrain India from conducting future tests, the minister said.

Chidambaram, a member of the now defunct UPA-Left committee on the nuclear deal, also allayed apprehensions that the Hyde Act of the US will bind India with regard to its strategic programme and autonomy.

“The Hyde Act cannot be invoked. The Hyde Act cannot bind India. The 123 agreement alone will delineate the rights and responsibilities of the two parties…. Under the Vienna convention, we are only bound by the 123 Agreement,” he said.

He said the Hyde Act was a matter of domestic law of the US and the American President has powers to override its provisions.