New Delhi, July 21: In a point for point rebuttal, the senior statesman of the Congress, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee tore apart the opposition to the confidence motion speech by L K Advani. Stating facts, figures and citing contemporary political history, the minister gave a crystal clear projection as to why the government wanted the nuclear deal and how any opposition to it was without merit.
Countering Advani’s statements, Pranab clarified that the BJP leader was wrong in saying that current government had been reduced to a minority. Giving out the party wise break-up of numbers, he proved that even after the withdrawal of support by the Left, the government had 276 MPs sitting on its side.
In his usual reasonable candor, Pranab said that as of now they had a simple majority in the House of 541. “What happens tomorrow, we shall see then. Even if we lose the trust vote, so be it. The Leader of Opposition should at least wait till tomorrow before he starts calling us a minority government.”
On Advani’s claim that the BJP never destabilizes governments, Mukherjee cited the example of 1977 when the Jan Sangh brought down eight state governments and also later in 1989 when BJP was supporting the VP Singh government from outside.
On the nuke deal, a visibly angry Pranab exhorted his case, giving out minutest details about why the government had taken a pro-123 agreement stand.
He called Advani’s bluff about Nehru not supporting nuclear programme. Addressing Advani he said, “In your enthusiasm when referring to Morarji Desai and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru refusing to sign the dotted line on non-proliferation, let me remind you that Pt Nehru died in 1964 and the NPT agreement came into existence only in 1970. How can a dead man support or reject any agreement.”
“Indira took N-initiative”
Pranab added that it was Indira Gandhi who had taken the first nuclear initiative by way of Pokharan I. He added that even Rajiv Gandhi had on an international platform said that “we are against nuclear weaponization, but we will keep our options open”.
Pranab said that the Congress stand has remained unchanged over the years. “We feel nuclear weapon is not a weapon to win wars. It only causes massive destruction…but we will keep our options open.”
On the third point that Advani made about renegotiating the deal, Mukherjee said, “Who has seen the future, it is not for ordinary mortals like us. But we can speculate keeping in mind the past record.” He then showed the House a document signed by the foreign minister of the erstwhile NDA government in the UN General Assembly post Pokharan II, which said “we are going to de facto sign the CTBT”.
Leaving the opposition and the Left with no ammo, Pranab, who has been the main coordinator between the government and the Left over the contentious issue, then took up point by point all objections that have been circulated by them in the press.
Pranab began by saying that he had reservations in calling 123 agreement, a nuclear deal in the first place and that it was actually a civil nuclear agreement meant to give a fillip to India’s ever growing energy needs.
Pranab further said that in his memory as a politician he had never seen any foreign policy issue being debated so intensively as this one.
“Govt didn’t hide anything”
Staunchly defending the government, Pranab said that the government was always forthcoming with what it intended to do with the nuclear deal. “The PM visited the US in 2005 and the debate in Parliament happened on July 25, just a week after the PM came back. Then again the debate was conducted in March 2006, and again in August 2006. The PM had always responded point-by-point to all concerns, especially those from the Left,” Pranab retorted.
On the tirade against the government that it was hiding facts, Pranab said, “After the concerns on Hyde Act and the demands that they should be taken into account, I respectfully submit that there were certain developments on the issue. But, when the Hyde Act was passed I reacted and said that parts of it were not acceptable.”
“Anywhere if the 123 agreement was to be linked to the Hyde Act then it will be the breaking point (in negotiations with the US),” quipped the minister.
Tearing apart the oppositions claims that the Hyde Act was applicable to Indo-US nuke deal he said, “The Indo-US nuke deal is in the public domain (on website) as is the IAEA draft agreement and there is no mention of Hyde Act in any of those.” I challenge any one to show me the Hyde Act as being part of the 123 agreement.
However, he admitted that there are prescriptive clauses in the Hyde Act, but made it clear that the government never approves of them and clarified by saying that the government will never compromise on the country’s independent foreign policy.
Elaborating further on the closed-door meeting during the times when the Left was starting to oppose the deal, Pranab said, “Due to the reservations over the Hyde Act, the UPA chairperson and the PM took the initiative to set up a mechanism to look into the Left’s concerns. The mandate (of the committee) was to address the concerns of the Left parties on the impact of Hyde Act and 123 agreement on India’s foreign policy.”
He added that it was decided to take the findings of the committee into account before operationalisation of the deal and in between also refer it to the UPA chairperson as it was not a Parliamentary committee.
“We had nine meetings (with the Left), the first six meetings went well, and then in November 2007 problems arose,” said Pranab.
He then pointed to the specific concerns of the Left parties and they were:
How IAEA will approve the Indo-US nuke deal?
Are you sure that IAEA will approve the separation plan?
Are you sure that IAEA will help in the event of any disruption of fuel supply?
Why is the IAEA agreement text not being made public?
“To all this we said that we will tell you when we reach an outcome. As in different countries the ways in which confidential texts are looked at is different. The IAEA was not making it public so how could we make it public,” he said.
“We could not make public a document that was still under negotiations. Therefore, we told them (Left) that you have to wait till the circulation of the text within the IAEA. We made it public exactly at the time when it was done,” snapped Pranab.
He claimed that the misconceptions that arose (the text first became public on a US website) was purely because of the difference in time zones.
On the confidentiality controversy, he concluded by saying that this had been the practice since January 1950. “Nobody has objected to the constitutional provision so far.”
Number crunching on energy needs
Staunchly defending the need for the deal, Pranab said, ‘We have been asked why are you going for the deal?”
“Today we have total power generation capacity of 145,000 MW, but the near future projections on energy deficit are 150,000 MW by 2030 and 450,000 by 2050. These figures take into account all types of power generation of all conventional sources.”
“If we start today (on nuke energy), as per some studies, then we will be able to produce 40,000 MW in the period between 2012 and 2020, that way the deficit will reduce to only 50,000 MW by 2030 and 7,000 MW by 2050.”
Taking out the example of former French President Charles de-Gaulle, Pranab said, “He too despite strong opposition started out on it (nuke) since 1948. And today 79% energy in France comes from nuclear energy. People ask us why the US and Russia are not following suit? They are not doing so because they are floating on oil; they have best quality coal and abundant oil reserves – something we don’t have.”
Arguing his case, Pranab said, “If we were to be totally dependent on thermal power, we would require 1.6 billion tones of coal to meet our requirement but by 2050, our reserves would be depleted.”
On the demand to develop hydel sources of energy, he said that the hydel power option was also difficult to effect as its resources are located in areas that will require massive investment just to make them accessible. It was also not possible to develop it on a large scale due to the strong resistance from the environmentalists.
He went on to praise the PM for his unwavering trust in the benefits of the deal by saying, “I must congratulate the PM for taking a visionary approach to take up the nuke deal. The deal will remove 30 years of isolation of our nuclear technology. That is the advantage.”
“NSG and IAEA clearances are the passport and visa for nuclear trade. Please help us have these passports and visa then it will be left to the collective agreement of the House,” pleaded Pranab.
Attacking the Left for their opposition, a visibly angry Pranab said, “Search you heart and asks yourself, do you think this is a reason (nuke deal) enough to bring the government that has consistently maintained 9% growth. The government has indeed done some good work. But you (Left) are taking credit for everything good, when many of them were originally the agenda of the UPA.”
He also chided the Left for now planning to vote against the government alongside the BJP by saying, “Please don’t identify with these forces. They are companions who are not desirable.”
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PM's speech full text >>
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