PM snubbed: Congress rules out NPT policy shift

NEW DELHI: Is Prime Minister Manmohan Singh quietly preparing ground for another major foreign policy shift that could inevitably lead to confrontation with the political class back home? In his talks in Port of Spain, he reportedly broached the issue of amending the present Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in a manner that India would receive ‘de jure’ recognition as a nuclear weapons state.

How troublesome the idea was for his party could be reckoned from the way in which the Congress jumped up to deny the report.

“The Congress party’s stand on the issue is clear: NPT is an absolute NO,” said Abhishek Manu Singhvi. Singhvi was not even willing to consider the prospect of an amendment to the NPT that could make India part of the high-five club. “We do not discuss foreign policy based on media reports.

We do not want to believe in the report. India’s stand will not be changed. We will not sign the treaty,” he said. Minutes before this, he was hailing the PM’s visit as a “great success”.

Singhvi cannot really be faulted for providing such a knee-jerk reaction at the very mention of the word NPT.

It was not so long ago that India sent a strongly-worded letter to the President of the UN Security Council stating that it will not comply with the non-proliferation obligations to which it has not provided its sovereign consent.

This came after US President Barack Obama successfully piloted a resolution in the UN Security Council calling upon all countries, including India, to join as nonnuclear weapons states.