Advani

New Delhi, Nov. 12: The BJP could have looked for options to save the Indo-US nuclear deal but did not do so because the government gave it the cold shoulder, L.K. Advani said today.

“The results would have been different if the government had initiated talks with the Opposition.… We would have tried to find a way (out) on the Hyde Act if they had talked to us,” he said.

The Centre did in the end approach the main Opposition party but only when the government was on the “verge of falling”, Advani told reporters on a plane to Bangalore, where he was flying to attend the Karnataka government’s swearing-in.

He added that the Centre was plainly told it would have to pay the price for its “opportunism”.

“Now, they have reached out to talk when they are on the verge of falling,” Advani said, adding it was “too late” to start a dialogue. “They are merely doing the formalities.”

Advani did not say how the approach was made, through whom and what exactly was proposed.

BJP leaders had been saying off the record that there was no reason for the party to rethink its stance at a time the Congress leadership kept sending out negative signals.

There had been murmurs of discontent among sections of the BJP about the party’s total rejection of the nuclear deal, but the dominant view was that there was no point helping a government that didn’t care for a working relationship.

When the Centre did open a channel of communication in the later stages, it was devoid of political content. National security adviser M.K. Narayanan dealt with the BJP at a time cabinet ministers and UPA stalwarts were talking to the Left.

Some Congress leaders, too, believe that the government’s failure to have “even a healthy working relation” with the BJP contributed to the tangle over the deal.

The problem deepened when the Centre set up a formal arrangement to sort out its differences with the Left but would not have a similar one with the Opposition, either through a parliamentary or a political mechanism. All the government was willing to do was informally clarify Opposition leaders’ doubts.

Feeling insulted, the BJP reacted violently by paralysing the latter part of the monsoon session. The atmosphere worsened when the Prime Minister responded to the BJP’s criticism by recalling Kargil and Advani’s track record as home minister.

Senior BJP leaders cited a remark by Sonia Gandhi at a newspaper function, which they thought showed contempt for their party.