Well, I don’t go by rumours.

• But you have access to more than rumours. First of all, is this treaty a done deal? Is it a frozen document? Both sides say it’s a frozen document two sovereign governments have initiated.

Obviously, if the U.S. claims it has gone to the limits of its concessions and that it (the deal) will not go through the U.S. Congress. So then it is a done deal.

• So if the UPA fails to convince the Left, it is a political argument of a different kind. Since you specified that you speak in a personal capacity, what can it do to convince you it is as serious and enthusiastic about the nuclear weapons programme as you were, and as according to you the government must be?

As I said, before we left office some work had been done. In the last three and a half years, what has been done?

• How do you advise them to convince you now? Because if I ask them, they’ll say, ‘We believe in the strategic programme. We started it. We funded it. We kept up the continuity.’

You know, when Pokhran II took place in 1998, the Congress was very lukewarm. Some of them criticised it in Parliament. We are also aware that during the Narasimha Rao regime, the idea of testing was taken up. I know because we had instructions for conducting a nuclear test. But it was given up because of economic and financial upheaval.

... contd.