As US President George Bush signed in the nuclear deal that granted India access to nuclear fuel outside the ambit of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), harsh criticism was heaped in India on restrictions placed on the nation by US policy makers. These restrictions united divergent right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and communists in their reaction asking India to forgo the deal but not enough to bring down the government.

Concerns ranged from testing rights to maintaining an independent foreign policy to preserving "strategic" projects such as fast breeder reactors and usage of spent fuel. But most of these concerns have already been addressed and mechanism exist to iron-clad the understanding through the "1-2-3 Agreement" that is being negotiated. Furthermore, the deal is also in conformance with stated strategic objectives of India such as the credible minimum deterrence and unilateral testing moratorium. Hence, a lot of the criticism and opposition is merely political grandstanding. "Qualitative Jump in Indo-US Relations".

The Indian Government has already rejected many of these objections and the Congress Party called the BJP objections on testing charging that party for instituting the unilateral testing moratorium. However, Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee vowed that India will not give up its right to testing. But then the bill is clear that any testing by India will cause the deal to lapse and India has the option to exercise that right if it weighs testing more than the benefits of the deal.