New Delhi: Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday backed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the Indo-US nuclear deal and congratulated him for the “accomplishment”.
“Our Government has entered into this agreement after tough negotiations. The agreement fulfils all the assurances that the Prime Minister has given repeatedly in Parliament," she said at a meeting of the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) as Singh listened.
"The objectives of the technological self-reliance and national sovereignty have been and will continue to be fully protected," she said and congratulated the PM and his team for "this accomplishment".
"We are a democracy and differences in views are inevitable, but informed debate and discussion are the answer," she said, hinting at the Left Front’s rejection of the nuclear deal.
Gandhi criticized the Opposition for heckling the Prime Minister in Parliament on Monday. "The most precious legacy bequeathed to us by our founding fathers is the system of parliamentary democracy. Debates and discussions lie at the very core of the system.
"There was a time when such debates, particularly in Parliament, stirred the entire nation. Sadly today, disruptions and sloganeering appear to have taken over," she said.
The politburo of CPI-M, the leading Left party, will meet in Delhi on August 17-18 to discuss how to tackle the nuclear deal in Parliament without weakening the government.
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