NSG bid a ‘vigorous push’, not required: Yashwant Sinha

After India’s entry into the Nuclear Supplies Group (NSG) was blocked at its meeting in Seoul last week, former external affairs minister and senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha criticised the government’s “vigorous push” to get the membership of the grouping.

Mr Sinha, who has been critical of the functioning of the Narendra Modi government and has been sidelined within the party, claimed that there was no need for India to have have gone to the elite grouping as an “applicant”.

He argued that India should not accept NSG membership. Mr Sinha stated that India has already got what it needs.

“India has shown so much keenness in getting NSG membership. it is not required at all. I say this very strongly that India should not accept the NSG membership,” Mr Sinha stated. He added that India should not go to the NSG as an applicant. “Whatever we had to get, we have got it,” added the BJP veteran, who was also the finance minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Cabinet.

Even while the Prime Minister had sought the support of a host of NSG members during his whirlwind forein tours this months, India’s push for becoming at member of the NSG had come a cropper at the plenary meeting of the 48-member Nuclear Suppliers Group recently as divisions persisted over admitting non-NPT members with China leading the opposition to it.

India had pushed its case with a number of countries, with PM also meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping while seeking Beijings support.

Mr Sinha has been a staunch critic of India’s foreign policy under the Modi government and has also flayed the foriegn policy with respect to Pakistan. He termed the developments at the NSG meet in Seoul as an “embarrassment” to India. Incidentally, the Opposition Congress too had hit out at the Prime Minister, saying he needs to realise that diplomacy needs “depth and seriousness and not public tamasha”.