BJP hits back at Congress over Australia uranium deal
Hitting back at the Congress over its claim that Australia’s decision to supply uranium to India was taken during the UPA Government, the BJP on Friday said international agreements are signed and implemented by Governments, not political parties.
The Congress earlier said that Australia’s uranium sales to India were not a breakthrough achieved by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, pointing out that then-Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard had secured her party’s approval in 2011 to sell uranium to India following the Indo-US nuclear pact.
Countering the Congress, BJP national spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari said that Governments sign and implement international agreements, not political parties. “Not every Government functions like the Gandhi-Vadra family’s private limited enterprise,” Bhandari said in a post on social media.
Questioning the Congress’ claims, Bhandari asked that if the 2011 approval was such a major success, why there was “virtually no Australian uranium supply to India between 2011 and 2014”.
He also claimed that Australia had said in 2012 that there would be “no uranium supply to India anytime soon”.
The India-Australia Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement was signed by the Modi Government in September 2014, Bhandari said, claiming that the current Government operationalised the long-term Australian uranium supply commitments in 2026.
He also said the Congress “may claim the Moon to please its supporters”, but “paper announcements alone do not deliver results; what matters is implementing them on the ground”.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh earlier said, “The BJP ecosystem is on an overdrive to show that Australia’s uranium sales to India are a Modi breakthrough. On December 4, 2011, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard got approval of her party to sell uranium to India following the India-US Nuclear Agreement of October 2008.”
“The BJP trolls that include some of its MPs too need to do their homework better,” Ramesh said, sharing a screenshot of media reports from December 2011 stating that Australia’s Labour Party had endorsed plans to open up uranium sales to India.
