Date:19/12/2004 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2004/12/19/stories/2004121906820800.htm

National

Minister has lowered India's prestige: Advani

By Our Special Correspondent

COIMBATORE, DEC. 18. The Bharatiya Janata Party president, L. K. Advani, today expressed his fear that India might ``surrender'' its nuclear power status if some nations were to step up pressure.

Mr. Advani was talking to mediapersons at the airport here on his way to Palakkad, Kerala, to attend the BJP's State executive committee meeting.

While deploring the reported ``advice'' by the External Affairs Minister, Natwar Singh, to South Korea and other countries that might want to acquire nuclear weapons ``not to follow the example of India,'' he alleged that the Minister had ``lowered India's prestige'' in the eyes of the international community.

According to him, Mr. Singh's ``advice,'' given in an interview to a South Korean newspaper, amounted to a ``brazen repudiation'' of the ``most important dimension of India's self-defence strategy.''

When the former External Affairs Minister, Jaswant Singh, raised the issue in Parliament, the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, tried to do some ``damage control'' by saying that it was not the Government's opinion.

Similarly, when the Petroleum Minister, Mani Shankar Aiyar, spoke about Veer Savarkar, it was said that it was his "personal opinion". "Thus, there is total abandonment of collective responsibility,'' he said.

Mr. Advani asserted that UPA constituents, notably the Congress and the Communists, never reconciled themselves to accepting India's nuclear power status.