Advani clarifies his stand on nuclear deal in NDA meeting


Not one to take any chances ahead of the July 22 trust vote in the Lok Sabha, BJP's prime ministerial candidate L K Advani yet again clarified his stand on the nuclear deal in the NDA meeting today and alleged the Congress was spreading canards that he had supported the deal in December 2007.
NDA sources said Advani spent around one-third of his speech during the meeting on clarifying that he had not supported the present nuclear deal in his meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in December 2007.

Congress leader Kapil Sibal had claimed in an interview to a news channel yesterday that Advani had supported the deal but backed out when he failed to convince his party members on the issue.

Advani also dealt with the issues that would be brought up during the debate in Parliament when the vote of confidence motion is moved by the Prime Minister.

Others who addressed the meeting were BJP leader Jaswant Singh, Shiv Sena leader Anant Geethe and BJP president Rajnath Singh. Geethe said 11 of the 12 MPs were supporting the NDA.