Not marking Pokhran anniversary dishonour to Indira Gandhi:BJP

Sat, May 10 10:41 PM

New Delhi, May 10 (PTI) Stepping up attack on the UPA Government for not marking the 10th anniversary of Pokhran nuclear tests, BJP senior leader L K Advani today said the Congress-led coalition has dishonoured Indira Gandhi by not celebrating it. "We have been under foreign rule and what is of concern is that we have developed a slave mindset.

It is reflected in such decisions (to not celebrate the Pokhran II anniversary)," Advani said addressing a function to mark the 150th anniversary of the 1857 uprising. The senior BJP leader said the Government's decision was a dishonour to the defence forces and scientists of the country.

"Government is not marking it and one of the ministers even said what is there to celebrate about Pokhran? It is the same like saying why to celebrate the 1857 anniversary. It is a dishonour to the defence and the scientists of the country," he said.

Advani said that the Congress-led UPA was dishonouring its own leader Indira Gandhi by not celebrating the Pokhran II anniversary. "It is a dishonour to Indira Gandhi.

She was the one who started nuclear testing. What Vajpayee government did in 1998 was a culmination of it," he added.

Earlier in the day, another senior BJP leader Jaswant Singh said the 1998 tests had changed the way world looked at India and Indo-US nuclear deal was a logical evolution of it. "Even the Indo-US Nuclear deal is a logical evolution of the Pokhran tests.

We are opposing it for reasons of losing our strategic independence but the path to it was set by the tests in 1998," Singh said. PTI.

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