New Delhi, November 28: Senior BJP leader Jaswant Singh, known for toeing a different line from that of his party on several issues, today said India’s nuclear tests in 1998 during the NDA regime gave a “parity” to Pakistan that it had always sought.
“The question that troubles us is that the 1998 nuclear tests by India conferred a kind of parity to Pakistan that it had always sought,” Singh said at a seminar at IIC here today.
Explaining further, the former External Affairs Minister said this parity had come about as the “deterrent quotient” had been altered after the nuclear tests.
“You cannot deter the undeterable… One who is not frightened of death but welcomes death,” he said.
The Pokharan-II tests, which catapulted India from a threshold nuclear power to a full-fledged one, is something that the BJP-led NDA is proud of and proclaims as one of its biggest achievements.
–Agencies