This, surely, is a paradigm shift from the policy that New Delhi has followed since 1974. Neither premise bears scrutiny. Both violate the Indian stand on this issue for five decades - namely, that nuclear weapons, being particularly horrifying weapons of mass destruction, are morally indefensible, legally impermissible, and strategically irrational. They are fundamentally illegitimate. They are the first human invention with the awesome potential to exterminate the human race, indeed all life.
Nuclear weapons are also astrategic.
Indeed, only insane strategists endorse nuclear war-fighting. The BJP violates this sound logic. Needless to say, it does not state its own reasoning, such as it might be, for doing so. All one can glean from its leaders' statements is that India should have nuclear arms because others have them, because of the size of its population, or because they are unlikely to be abolished in the near future. None of this constitutes a valid reason.