NEW DELHI, APRIL 27: After having debated foreign policy in the top echelons over the last fortnight, the BJP will shortly outline its priorities over Nepal, Tibet, and the Indo-US nuclear deal, especially after former National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra’s spirited defence of the deal.

The party has already accorded a guarded welcome to the democratically elected government in Nepal, while decrying “undue restrictions” on the Dalai Lama here.

Senior leaders Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie, who have articulated the party’s opposition to the nuclear deal in the past, were specially called to the party’s core group meeting last week.

Party sources also confirmed that senior BJP leader Jaswant Singh had a 15-minute meeting with Union Minister External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee last week.

“Jaswantji and Shourieji will hold forth on our foreign policy priorities here on Monday. I will be away in Meerut for a day,” Sinha told The Indian Express.

It was during Jaswant’s term as Union External Affairs Minister in the Vajpayee government that the seeds of the Indo-US strategic partnership were sown, and the senior leader is likely to help formulate a far more calibrated position on the subject.

“Our (opposition to the deal) was copybook, rather than realistic. We only managed to antagonise the middle class that sees merit in the deal. But don’t expect any U-turn in our position,” said a top leader.

The party’s prime ministerial candidate, L K Advani, recently said on the television series Walk the Talk with this paper’s editor-in-chief that “there should be a treaty with America that takes India out of nuclear apartheid, and simultaneously, it should be a treaty between equals, which does not impose any curbs. . . let the Atomic Energy Act be amended so as to ensure that domestic laws of America, such as the Hyde Act, do not apply to us.”