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Vajpayee misled the country, says Congress

The Congress has alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party has failed in articulating India's foreign policy, and accused Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his special envoy Jaswant Singh of misleading the country.

The United States' decision to blacklist a host of Indian companies exposed the double standards of its government on issues related to nuclear weapons as well as the futility of diplomacy as practiced by BJP-led government, Congress spokesman Mani Shankar Aiyar said.

He said the repeated rounds of discussions between US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and Jaswant Singh achieved nothing.

Singh's claim that his talks with Talbott were 'constructive' was totally misleading. Talbott's statement showed that Singh's persuasive powers had not worked, Aiyar said.

Our foreign policy goals need to be more clearly articulated and more effectively pursued, Aiyar added.

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