NEW DELHI, 22 February 2006 — Congress President Sonia Gandhi yesterday said her party welcomed a parliamentary debate on Iran’s nuclear program and an Indo-US deal on civilian use of nuclear energy, but insisted that the government’s policy will be dictated by the country’s strategic and national interests.
“As Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has repeatedly said, our government will always give paramount consideration to the protection of India’s short-term and long-term strategic and national interests,” she told a Congress Parliamentary Party meeting here.
“We welcome the opportunity for a debate in both houses of Parliament on the issues.” Communist parties, on whose support the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government depends for survival, have strongly criticized the government for voting against Iran at an International Atomic Energy Agency meeting and for signing a deal with the United States for helping India develop nuclear energy for civilian use. With just a week left for the presentation of the budget in Parliament, Sonia seemed to be placating the left.
On the blasphemous cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), she said: “Nobody should be allowed to hurt religious feelings of any community.”
She said the tax collection system had to be strengthened, unproductive government expenditure curtailed and wasteful utilization of resources eliminated to finance priority programs such as the rural employment guarantee scheme.
