NEW DELHI, May 20: Home Minister L K Advani's aggressive statements linking the Kashmir issue with the nuclear bomb tests and weaponisation have provided the Opposition with a latest platform to bombast the ruling party.Today the Congress joined issue with the CPM charging the BJP with damaging India's good relations with its neighbours by ``irresponsible and dangerous'' statements for publicity following the nuclear tests.Party spokesman Salman Khursheed said the BJP leaders' provocative statements would cause irreparable damage to the good relations built assiduously over the last five decades.Khursheed said that Home Minister was seeking ``cheap and quick publicity''. ``What the government has delivered. what the Home Minister has done about internal security?'' he asked.Referring to BJP spokesman Venkaiah Naidu's statement, he said there was no difference in the Congress over the Pokhran tests and asked Naidu to confine himself to his brief. Naidu had welcomed Congress leader Sharad Pawar'sviews on the tests while regretting that of Congress president Sonia Gandhi.``Naidu suffers from a combination of illusions of grandeur and a deep seated guilt complex , he alleged. Gandhi had already extended the party's greetings to the scientific community and reminded the BJP that the task could be carried out due to the 40 years of untiring efforts and policies of the Congress.He also asked Naidu to `educate' his colleague and Prime Minister's political advisor Pramod Mahajan who, he said, was contradicting the prime minister. It is one thing to be a spokesperson and quite another to be a contrary `voice'. After multiple faces now we have the scenario of multiple voices, Khursheed said.To a question, Khursheed said Mahajan had contradicted Vajpayee on several counts-including weaponisation, signing of comprehensive test ban treaty, possession of bomb and counter guarantees to power projects.Khursheed also criticised the government for moving towards fascism through `thought control' andregulation of bureaucrats. The formation of Bharat Gaurav Sanstha, by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad to keep civil servants under constant surveillance was a dangerous trend and the beginning of forming a parallel government, he alleged.The moves for `ideology cops' for the civil service like Shiv Sena's cultural cops, were attempts to gradually stifle dissent and diversity in a democratic set up, he said.The CPM had yesterday flayed the attempt by the Home Minister to link a solution to the Kashmir problem with India's new-found status as a nuclear power.India, while condemning Pakistan for interfering in Kashmir, is legitimately entitled to take firm measures to deal with Islamabad's support to terrorist activity in J&K, the party felt. ``But to indulge in nuclear sabre-rattling to deal with Indo-Pak relations is totally unwarranted and can be dangerous,'' the Leftist party said. Following the earlier stand taken by the Prime Minister that India will use nuclear weapons only in self-defence, thestatement by Advani sends out wrong signals that India is prepared to use the nuclear issue as a factor in settling disputes.
