India News Online » News Analysis » Indian Politics » 

CPI(M) ups the ante : Abandon Nuke deal or face polls

	December 17, 2007

The CPI(M) has set a December end deadline for the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance Government to wind up the Indo-US civil nuclear deal. Party general secretary Prakash Karat has said if the Government wanted to snap ties with the Left on this issue, political parties should start preparing for a mid-term poll.



Speaking on the same lines, CPI general secretary A.B. Bardhan asked the Government to immediately scrap the deal.



Asserting that the Left was opposed to the nuclear deal and India forging a strategic alliance with the US, Karat told a news magazine that “If this is the issue they (UPA) want to break up with us on, all political parties need to be prepared for elections any time.”



He was responding to a question whether the CPI(M) was prepared for polls if the Government went ahead with the nuclear deal.



Noting that the nuclear deal debate in Parliament “clearly established” that a majority of the MPs were opposed to the 123 Agreement “in some way or the other”, Karat said considering this, “it will be better for the Government to not proceed with the deal.”



Addressing the Delhi State party conference, Karat had said that the Left had provided limited concession to the UPA Government to hold talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) because it did not want to destabilise the Government ahead of the Gujarat Assembly polls. He had asked the Government to stop all future negotiations on the deal by December end.



On strategic partnership with the US, Karat said, “We expect the Government to go by the Common Minimum Programme which talks of pursuing closer engagement and relations with the US, but not a strategic alliance.”



“We have problems both with the India-US Defence Framework Agreement and the joint statement issued during the Prime Minister’s visit to Washington in July 2005,” Karat added. The Marxist hardliner also wanted review of India’s position vis-a-vis Iran.”



Addressing a Press conference, Bardhan said that most lawmakers were against the India-US deal and asked the Government to take the “sense of the House” into account and scrap the agreement. Bardhan said his party will raise this demand at the next meeting of the UPA-Left committee on the nuclear deal.



“We do not want the deal. We do not want the deal to be operationalised. There is no doubt about it. Arithmetically, the sense of Parliament is that the majority is opposed to the deal,” Bardhan said.



Asked why the Left parties are prolonging the withdrawal of support in the wake of opposition to the deal, Bardhan said issues of national and international importance could not be disposed of like that.



Bardhan said the Left parties have “failed to convince the Government and the Government has failed to convince us” even after a number of meetings in the last four months.





————————Box——————



Karat’s U turn : No poll threat to UPA Government



CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat on Saturday denied reports that he had threatened elections on the issue of the Indo-US nuclear deal and felt such reports in recent days were an attempt to create an “atmosphere of insecurity” about the Central government and impair Left-UPA relationship.



Referring to the interview carried by a news weekly, Karat said certain remarks were attributed to him which he had not made.



“The alleged remarks ‘if this is the issue they want to break up with us on, all political parties need to be prepared for elections anytime’ were not made by me,” Karat asserted.



However, last week Karat had told the party’s Delhi state committee that Left would not allow government to go to IAEA for the safeguards negotiations beyond December and in case the government persisted, there would be mid-term elections. He had also said that Left did not want instability due to Gujarat elections.



Referring to the interview carried by the news weekly, Karat said in a statement, “I had given written answers to the questions, the transcript of which is available. Neither was the question ‘And if they do proceed (with the nuclear deal), are you prepared for elections?’ put to me, nor have I replied in such a manner.”



—————————box ends here——————





CPI(M) not to allow the Govt. to take anti-poor decisions



On Dec. 10, addressing an election rally in Himachal Pradesh, Prakash Karat said his party will not allow the government to take any decision against the interests of the country including the nuclear deal till the last day of this government. He said the CPI(M) will not allow the Congress-led government to take any decision which will harm the interest of the poor, workers, government employees and petty traders.





Congress intrigued at Karat’s move : Pranab calls on Basu



Reports say that the Congress leadership is intrigued at Prakash Karat choosing to raise the spectre of political instability at the Centre on the eve of the Gujarat Assembly polls, where the Congress-led secular forces are engaged in a crucial fight with the Narendra Modi-led BJP.



Apparently upset over frequent flip-flop by Karat, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee called on veteran CPI(M) leader Jyoti Basu at his Salt Lake residence in Kolkata on Sunday, Dec. 15.



Mukherjee drove to Basu’s residence and the meeting between the two leaders lasted for about 20 minutes. However, both Mukherjee and Basu refused to divulge what transpired during the meeting.



Mukherjee had on Saturday in Raipur brushed aside reports that the Left parties had threatened to pull out from the UPA government if it went ahead in operationalising the Indo-US nuclear deal and said the entire issue was a “media creation”.



Another senior Congress leader A.K. Antony said in Thiruvananthapuram on Dec. 10 that any talk of destabilising the UPA now can only pave the way for the return of the BJP.



Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma rejected Karat’s - end the IAEA talks or get ready for a Lok Sabha poll - threat and asserted that there was no understanding with the Left to end the nuclear talks after the Gujarat polls.



The AICC spokesperson said just as the UPA-Left co-ordination mechanism had collectively decided on the UPA regime holding the India-specific safeguard talks with IAEA, the future course of negotiations will also have to be a joint decision by the same forum.



Congress sources wondered as to why Karat chose to rake up the spectre of instability at the Centre just on the eve of the Gujarat polls when it was already understood that the IAEA talks could be completed in December. “We know that the CPI(M) thrives on the anti-Congress plank in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura. But when the Left has extended support to the UPA on a secular plank, then why did Karat choose to send a negative signal across the country, Gujarat in particular, about the stability of the very secular government at the Centre just when the most crucial battle against Modi and BJP is being fought,” asked a CWC member.



“Incidentally, the CPI(M) is the only Left Party that has entered into a formal alliance with the Congress in the only Assembly seat in Gujarat -Bhavnagar (North) - where the Marxists stand a chance to win if backed by an influential ally,” he added.



In Thiruvanathapuram, Defence Minister A.K. Antony came out with a veiled attack on the CPI(M) chief’s threat to the Manmohan Singh Government. “Going by the national political situation a coalition-led either by the Congress or by the BJP alone could gain power at the Centre and destabilisation of the UPA would lead to dangerous consequences. Allowing the communal forces to assume power would be dangerous as the country’s secular ethos had suffered grievous harm during the six years the BJP-led NDA was in power,” he said.





Left does not have the courage to withdraw support : BJP



The BJP has dared the Left to withdraw support to the UPA government and not just talk about the issue. BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said in New Delhi on December 9, “the Left lacks the courage to withdraw support to the Government because the looming fear of the BJP is more important to them than the apparent sell out to the US.



Senior BJP leader L.K. Advani said that the Left has lost all credibility because of its flip-flop on the nuclear deal and was responsible for creating political uncertainty by keeping the possibility of mid-term polls open.



One of the constituents of the Left Front, the Forward Bloc, has said that it would withdraw support to the UPA Government if negotiations were continued with the IAEA.