New Delhi: Lashing out at the BJP for
accusing the UPA government of being guided by the US,
Congress today said the party has protected the country`s
supreme national interests all these years from 1947 onwards.
"Congress has protected India`s supreme national
interest," party spokesman Manish Tewari told reporters here
on the charges of the BJP made yesterday.
Tewari reminded the BJP that in 1947 when the country
was not even Independent, Jawaharlal Nehru convened a
conference of Asian countries in New Delhi to raise voice
against colonialism.
He said during the cold war, India took the initiative
and showed the way for non-alignment and in 1965 and 1971, the
same Congress government protected India`s supreme national
interest by emerging victorious in the war with Pakistan.
The spokesman noted that Congress strengthened India`s
diplomacy and referred to the end of "nuclear apartheid" under
the Congress-led UPA government in 2008.
Asking BJP to "introspect", Tewari said when the country
carried out the nuclear tests in 1998, the then BJP government
wrote a letter to the US and became a laughing stock of the
world.
He said in September 1998, the then BJP Prime Minister
during a visit to New York talked about the unilateral signing
of the CTBT and after 9/11, the same government offered to
give US a unilateral offer of a military base.
BJP spokesperson Rajiv Pratap Rudy had yesterday said the
party was "disappointed" to note that the UPA regime was very
keen on getting the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damages Bill
through "to please" the US.
"Under pressure, the Prime Minister has mortgaged India`s
foreign policy to the US," Rudy had said.
PTI
