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This is an archive article published on July 29, 2008

SP reiterates deal support but adds: amend Hyde Act or bring your own

Underlining its support to the nuclear deal which it called a national “achievement,” the Samajwadi Party...

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Underlining its support to the nuclear deal which it called a national “achievement,” the Samajwadi Party (SP) has, for the first time after the trust vote, said that the UPA should press the US Government to make changes in the Hyde Act.

“There are certain provisions in the Hyde Act which will create hindrance in going ahead with the nuclear deal. We request the Centre to press the US for making certain amendments in the Hyde Act before finalizing the deal or present a bill in Parliament to make an Act in India also”, read the SP’s political resolution released in Lucknow today, adding, “The Act is necessary to prevent other countries from creating hindrance in India’s strategic programme in the name of atomic energy production for the people.”

“India should force the US to bring some amendments or India should bring an ordinance to make its own law so that the right of the country to go ahead with nuclear tests is not taken away under the garb of nuclear energy,” said SP General Secretary Amar Singh in Lucknow.

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“Even the government side has acknowledged some prescriptive clauses in the Hyde Act which they said did not apply to India,” SP’s MP Mohan Singh told The Indian Express. “It was an achievement of the country that IAEA and developed countries are ready to supply nuclear reactor and fuel for atomic energy to India even when India was not party to NPT and CTBT,” read the resolution.

“The SP leadership had certain objections on certain clause of the nuclear deal but after an assurance by the UPA government we felt that opposition to the deal was not fair,” it said, congratulating the national executive for its decision to back the UPA government.

In fact, in his reply to the debate on the trust vote in the Lok Sabha, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said: “We are willing to look at possible amendments to our Atomic Energy Act to reinforce our solemn commitment that our strategic autonomy will never be compromised.”

In this context, SP’s stand regarding forcing the government to press the US to amend the Hyde act was qualified by putting the faith in the Prime Minister and derived legitimacy from the certificate by former President APJ Abdul Kalam in favour of the deal.

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“We had no point in opposing the deal after that as we have faith in the integrity and functioning of the PM who has promised us to look into it”, said Amar Singh.

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