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Deve Gowda blasts Vajpayee for dumping 'consensus'

Former prime minister H D Deve Gowda took Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to task for going back on his assurance to follow the path of consensus. He said unless he took Parliament into confidence on the follow-up to the Pokhran blasts, no purpose would be served.

"The House is divided and to get its co-operation you should share the follow-up strategy with us as merely showing the bomb may not bring our neighbours to the negotiating table," Deve Gowda said while speaking on the Pokhran nuclear tests debate in the Lok Sabha on Friday.

He cautioned that even the pro-active approach pursued by the government may not go a long way in resolving the insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir and the North-East in the absence of co-operation from all shades of political opinion.

Advising the prime minister against following a partyline on the matter, he said, ''We expect the nation to be one in facing the post-Pokhran blasts challenge.''

Strongly criticising the government for not taking the Opposition leaders into confidence before the blasts, he pointed out that in contrast the United Front government had taken all prominent leaders into confidence on the signing of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

Making light of the charge that the previous governments lacked the courage to go in for nuclear blasts, he said he had declined permission for the same because of his concern for the rural masses.

Besides, where was the need to demonstrate to the world India's hidden capability in the nuclear field.

He also castigated the government for citing the threat perception as the rationale for the blasts, saying there was nothing new, be it the Jammu and Kashmir problem or the boundary dispute with China.

He also asserted that the policies of the previous governments had been paying dividends and there was a visible thaw in relations with both Pakistan and China.

Besides, relations with Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka were also on an upswing.

He also made light of the secrecy issue with regard to the Pokhran blasts saying, ''If it (secrecy) was so important, how did the media and certain leaders came to know of it?''

He said India's nuclear capability was established in 1974 and if India had not been considered nuclear capable, the superpowers would not have exerted such intense pressure to make it sign the CTBT. But India stood its ground, he said.

He once again asserted that the government could expect co-operation from the entire House only if it demonstrated that it had confidence in the Opposition.

He also pointed out that the political situation in the country was different now as compared to 1974, when the first nuclear explosion was conducted by India.

He said, since the Vajpayee government was a coalition, it was its moral duty to take other parties, including its coalition partners, into confidence.

UNI

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