MICS - India Shekhar kulshreshtha
NEW DELHI, JULY 21: Armed with the Left and UNPA support, BSP chief Mayawati on Monday attempted to package herself as a prime ministerial candidate, speaking on the Indo-US nuclear deal and India’s foreign policy.
As PM Manmohan Singh sought the confidence of the Lok Sabha, she held a press conference at her Humayun Road residence in her new avtar. However, she virtually parroted the views of the Left parties.
“The UPA Government should not make the deal a prestige issue, and suspend it for the time being. They should allow the next government to take an appropriate decision as elections are round the corner,” she said, reading out a statement.
While Mayawati did not call the deal anti-Muslim, she said it would endanger world peace and hamper the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline. “It is deeply feared that after the Indo-US deal is clinched, the US will attack Iran,” she said, adding the UPA Government would have to take the blame as this would hurt the economic growth of India. “India will share a major portion of the blame for the war and for this the UPA Government will be directly responsible.”
She called for Indo-US relations on equal terms and argued for permanent membership for India in the UN Security Council. “Across the world, friendship is based on a give-and-take basis. If the US is so eager for a strategic relationship with India, it should support India’s demand for a permanent membership in the Security Council,” she said.
The deliberate attempt to project herself as a tall leader was amply clear as she refused to join issue with the SP over horsetrading charges and the BJP’s opposition to her prime ministerial ambition. “I don’t take note of useless talk,” she said when asked that the BJP had said that she would never become Prime Minister.
Later in the day, Mayawati met Chandrababu Naidu for one and a half hours. Rebel Congress MP from Karnal Arvind Kumar Sharma also met the BSP chief.
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