PTI
NEW DELHI, Jul 9: BJP leader L K Advani on Tuesday expressed apprehensions that there may be a "deal behind the deal" as Congress-led UPA government looks for new allies to bail itself out and asked the Prime Minister to come clean on the issue.
"There is widespread suspicion and speculation that something scandalous has suddenly sweetened the historically bitter relations between the Congress and Samajwadi Party," he said.
"I demand that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh come clean on this issue by assuring the nation that there has been no quid pro quo, that his government is not misusing institutions to bail out certain individuals in cases of economic offences and financial irregularities," Advani said.
Referring to the Left parties' withdrawal of support to the UPA government, BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate L K Advani said on Tuesday that a minority government does not have moral or political legitimacy to sign the nuclear deal.
"Once a government is reduced to a minority government, it simply does not have either the political or moral legitimacy to go ahead with a major international agreement, especially when the very cause of the government losing its majority is the sharp difference between the ruling coalition and the supporting parties over the deal," Advani said while speaking at the first D K Sinha memorial lecture here.
"Former president R. Venkatraman has said in his autobiography that he had told the then government not to sign an international agreement after it became a minority government," he said.
The senior BJP leader said though the Indo-US nuclear deal was not a part of the Common Minimum Programme of the UPA and the Left it was the only issue being discussed for the past one and a half years.
"The government is paralysed on all other fronts, including back-breaking inflation," he said.
Advani demanded that a session of Parliament should be convened at the earliest and the UPA government should seek a trust vote.
He said August 11 -- the date for convening of the monsoon session-- was too far off, especially in the light of new developments.