India is paying a heavy price due to UPA government's lack of direction, coherence, independence and even a full-time minister in the vital area of foreign policy

I join all patriotic Indians in condemning the abduction and killing of engineer K. Suryanarayana on Sunday by Taliban in Afghanistan. I send heartfelt condolences to his bereaved family. This is the second instance of killing of an Indian by Taliban forces in less than six months. In November 2005, Maniappan Raman Kutty, a driver with the Indian Border Roads Organisation, which was engaged in a project in Afghanistan, was similarly murdered.

In India we have a long and cherished tradition of bipartisan unity in foreign policy. The BJP has always valued this tradition, and will continue to do so. Nevertheless, I am compelled by a number of recent happenings to remark that our country is paying a heavy price due to the UPA government's lack of direction, coherence and even a full-time minister in the vital area of foreign policy.

The most worrying part is the steady erosion of independence in India's foreign policy.

This was most clearly evident in the recent Indo-US nuclear agreement, through which the UPA government has compromised India's national security. The agreement has reduced India's sovereign and independent control over the minimum credible deterrence capability of our nuclear arsenal. It also puts India in an iniquitous position vis-à-vis other nuclear weapons states.

In this context, former external affairs minister Shri Natwar Singh's recent criticism of the Indo-US nuclear pact is significant. It is sad to note that both the Prime Minister and Congress president have responded to it with their habitual silence.

The UPA government's approach to the recent developments in Nepal was not only confused, but also cavalier. The BJP is second to none in supporting Nepali people's aspirations for democracy. Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee was indeed the first to congratulate Shri G.P. Koirala after he was chosen to become the new Prime Minister of Nepal. My party has fully supported King Gyanendra's decision to revive Nepal's Parliament and thus pave the way for full and effective restoration of democracy in Nepal.

However, we in the BJP are shocked to see the UPA government's indifferent attitude towards the rise of Maoists in Nepal's politics. Indeed, some constituents of the UPA were openly trying to accord legitimacy to Maoists, totally unmindful of the well-known link between Maoists in Nepal and Naxalites in India.

The UPA government also seemed to be a mere onlooker in the face of the growing influence of certain major powers and regional entities in the internal affairs of Nepal, in a way that undermined India's historically close ties with our Himalayan neighbour.

The developments in Afghanistan are another instance of the UPA government's lack of comprehension of national interests in managing India's neighbourhood policy. On the one hand, the Congress-led government seems totally disinterested in acknowledging the ideological roots and global networking of jehadi terrorism, whose Afghan manifestation is the rabid Islamist element in the Taliban. Its kid-glove approach to jehadi terrorists' penetration in India, both from Pakistan and Bangladesh, testifies to the Congress party's vote-bank politics.