Four days before a critical Indo-US meeting to tie up loose ends in the 123 bilateral agreement, the BJP stepped up pressure and demanded that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh bring the matter to Parliament. This lay the ground for another possible statement from the Centre on the issue.

Indicating clearly that there were differences at home — the Left had made a similar demand recently —before Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon met US Under-Secretary of State Nicholas Burns on May 31 over the deal, former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee today said that in the light of the specific assurances made to Parliament in August last year by Singh, it was necessary keep Parliament in the loop.

“It is incumbent upon the Prime Minister to satisfy both Houses before confirming India’s commitment to the deal. This is all the more necessary given the controversy generated by some provisions of the legislation (Hyde Act) passed by the US Congress,” Vajpayee said.

The comments from the major Opposition party as the Prime Minister heads for Germany on June 6 where he is scheduled to meet US President George Bush on the sidelines of G8 summit, is evidently geared to highlight the domestic fault lines on the nuclear issue, preparing the stage for another confrontation with the Government.

The former Prime Minister did mention in his statement that constitutionally it was not necessary for the Government to seek parliamentary approval before signing an international agreement. However, referring to Burns’s reported remarks that the deal was 90 per cent ready, he wanted the Government to bring it back to Parliament yet again so that it could be vetted.

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