New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress are birds of the same feather and the BJP’s rhetoric criticising the United Progressive Alliance’s ‘subservience’ to the United States is “only political rhetoric meant to score points against the UPA, Deputy Chief of Mission Robert Blake said in a December 2005 cable published by an Indian daily The Hindu.
The BJP, at its National Executive meeting in Mumbai on December 26 and 27, 2005, criticised the UPA government for adopting a foreign policy that was “subservient” to the U.S. But soon after the party passed this foreign policy resolution, its leaders privately told American diplomats not to read too much into it.
In the cable sent on December 28, 2005 Mr. Blake said: “In a private conversation on December 28, BJP National Executive Member Seshadiri Chari urged us ‘not to read too much into the foreign policy resolution, especially the parts relating to the US.’ Chari dismissed the statement as ‘standard practice’ aimed at scoring easy political points against the UPA. BJP spokesman Prakash Javdekar echoed these statements, saying that the BJP was not really upset about the US/India relationship, but merely wanted the GOI [Government of India] and USG [United States Government] to be more forthcoming about any deal on nuclear policy.”
Mr. Blake came up with this analysis of the BJP’s motives and actions: “The regional policy statements are standard BJP boilerplate, but the party adopted a peculiarly harsh view towards US/India relations. BJP insiders assured us privately that the statements were only political rhetoric meant to score points against the UPA. It is not unusual for domestic political considerations to take precedence over foreign policy in India, and the BJP decided there was little risk of negative fallout with the USG.”
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