Taking a swipe at Congress president and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi for her reported statement of that those opposed to Indo-US nuclear deal and the approved alignment of the Sethusamudaram Project were the enemies of development and peace, the BJP on Monday dubbed her utterances as arrogant, intolerant and dictatorial in attitude.
Coming heavily on her for her remarks, which she made on Sunday a public rally in Jhajjar, Haryana, BJP spokesperson Prakash Javedkar said, ??In reality the case is other way round. It is the Congress, which has halted the progress of the country by slowing down various development initiatives of NDA like North-South and East-West corridor and river linking project.??
Reiterating his party?s stand that the BJP always wanted to have good relations with the US, but on equal terms, Javedkar claimed that the Congress was playing strategic subservience to US foreign policy by rushing through the nuclear-deal
and doing so with ?collateral? purpose.
The party also claimed that interestingly, the majority in Parliament had opposed this deal but the government refused to acknowledge this fact. It asked the UPA government to reveal the cost of the project and the total volume of electricity, the deal would provide to the country.
The party claimed that the country would be able to get just 35,000mw of electricity over the period of 30 years with a total coast of $50 billion equivalent to about Rs 2,00,000 crore.
On the other hand, the Suhansiri project in Arunachal Pradesh, if completed, could generate 35,000mw of hydel power in the next three years at a much lower cost.
The Congress, the BJP said, should show up the courage to ask the people whether they approved nuclear power at a cost of Rs 15 per unit or hydel power at Rs four per unit.
It said if this government could reach any understanding with Nepal to channelise perennial water resources for power generation, there would be no power shortage in the country. Besides the Congress ought to explain why the UPA government was not operationalising Fast Breeder Reactor Programme, which can open up possibilities of self-sufficiency in power generation.
On Sethusamudaram Project, the party accused the Congress of hurting the sentiments of the people and demanded the government immediately announce that it would adopt other alignment for the project to save the Ram Sethu.
