New Delhi, March 6 – The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has been accused of surrendering to foreign forces, presented a counter-argument on Friday to deflect criticism of the crude oil deal. It also shared "instructions" from two former US Secretaries of State, including Hillary Clinton, directing multiple countries, including India, to reduce their crude oil imports from Iran.
BJP's IT cell chief, Amit Malviya, used social media to share how, in 2012 (when the Congress-led UPA was in power), seven nations in Southeast Asia, including India, reduced their crude oil purchases from Iran for 180 days, apparently at the behest of the United States, with the threat of sanctions. He also shared archival links of these directives from the then US Secretary of State, in 2012 and 2013, to support his claim.
Malviya's disclosures came in the midst of a heated political controversy over the alleged surrender of the Indian government to the Trump administration in purchasing cheap crude oil from Russia, India's long-term and trusted ally.
Congress and opposition leaders have launched an offensive against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the government, following US Treasury Secretary Scott Besant's public statement this morning that the US had granted a temporary 30-day waiver to allow Indian refiners to purchase Russian oil, in the wake of turmoil in the Middle East.
This triggered a verbal war between the opposition and the ruling BJP, with the former calling it "total surrender" by the Modi government, while the latter criticized the former for its "historical blunders." Many Congress leaders also shared a video of Rahul Gandhi, from a recent address in Parliament, where he claimed that our oil purchases will be decided by America and can be accordingly reduced or stopped at will.
In response, Amit Malviya shared two instances from 2012 and 2013, when the then US Secretary of State unilaterally decided to cut down oil deliveries from Iran to at least 11 nations, including India.
Malviya, sharing a press statement dated June 11, 2012, by then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, wrote, "Today, I have determined that seven economies – India, Malaysia, the Republic of Korea, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Turkey, and Taiwan – have all significantly reduced their volume of crude oil purchases from Iran. They join the 11 countries for which I made this determination in March. As a result, I will report to the Congress that sanctions pursuant to Section 1245(d)(1) of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 will not apply to their financial institutions for a potentially renewable period of 180 days."
In another tweet, he shared a statement by John Kerry, the then US Secretary of State in 2013, and wrote, "I am pleased to announce that China, India, Malaysia, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Turkey, and Taiwan have again qualified for an exception to sanctions outlined in section 1245 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2012, based on additional significant reductions in the volume of their crude oil purchases from Iran, or for reducing those purchases to zero and remaining there."
The revelation of these "uncomfortable truths" from the past is likely to intensify the verbal war between the BJP and the opposition.
The opposition maintains that the US has the audacity to dictate terms to us because of the Indian government's failed foreign policy. However, the fresh disclosures by the BJP come as a strong counter, while showing the opposition the truth about its "duplicity".
