However good it is at Hindutva, the Bharatiya Janata Party is far better at sulking. According to Lal Krishna Advani, the United Progressive Alliance government’s request to the BJP to sit for discussions on India’s nuclear deal with the United States of America came too late. The BJP could have put its collective grey cells at the service of the UPA government to salvage the deal had it been requested earlier, at the time the Centre was speaking so intimately to the Left parties. The main opposition party has obviously resented being ignored when things were critical. But sulking is not conducive to logic. The intriguing time element that Mr Advani has introduced into his already confusing argument makes nonsense of the objections the BJP had made to the 123 Agreement. It is not so long ago that the BJP had stated emphatically that it would not support the agreement unless amendments were made to it and to the Hyde Act. And that its desire for closer ties with the US did not mean compromising national interests. Clearly, the BJP felt that this is what the deal in its present form would bring about.

Without going into the merits or demerits of these arguments, it would be fair to say that such objections would be inevitable before any big decision a democratic government takes. It is also healthy for a government to address them. But by claiming that the Centre slipped up on a matter of manners, coming to the main opposition long after trying to appease its supporters, Mr Advani seems to have undermined the BJP’s original objections. Is it the timing of the UPA government’s request that the BJP is criticizing, or the terms of the Indo-US nuclear deal? Sulking children are bad enough, but sulky elder statesmen are far more stressful. Now it is impossible to make out whether the BJP has serious objections, or is just playing cops and robbers, which it thinks the Opposition should. In a mature democracy, the Opposition is expected to be responsible, not sulky.