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Nuclear deal : Left’s ‘No’ to joining hands with BJP

	August 14, 2006

With the Left parties deciding on not joining hands with the BJP to vote against the Manmohan Singh government in Parliament over the India-US nuclear deal, the steam has been taken out of the BJP’s move to embarrass the Government.



Veteran CPI(M) leader Jyoti Basu on Monday, August 7, made it clear that the Left would not vote against the Congress-led UPA Government on the issue. After attending a meeting of the CPI(M) state committee in Kolkata, Basu said, “We may shout against the government on the floor of Parliament along with the BJP as we have reservations about the proposed nuclear deal. But under no circumstances, will we vote against the UPA government. We don’t want the fall of the Union government right now.”



Basu’s remarks have cleared confusion in political circles at the national level that the four Left parties might join hands with the BJP to pull down the government over the issue of the nuclear deal.



Last week, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had reacted sharply over the CPI(M) and other Left parties move to join hands with the BJP to thwart the government’s move to finalise the deal with the US government. Dr Singh told a CPI delegation that the role of the Left parties over the nuclear deal issue could have led to the downfall of the government.



There is no doubt that the Prime Minister, by making such a harsh comment, had attempted to resist the Left parties continuous efforts to influence the government’s foreign policy.



CPI(M)’s general secretary Prakash Karat had told the media that his party would not hesitate to take support of the BJP to oppose the deal on the floor of Parliament. Though Karat did not specify whether the CPI(M) and other Left parties would vote against the Manmohan Singh government over the issue in Parliament, speculation was on that the Leftists might do so.



Later in the week, the CPI(M) reiterated the line spelt out by Jyoti Basu. In a neat U-turn, the CPI(M) said that it has “fundamental differences” with the BJP on the nuclear question and ruled out any joint project with the NDA to embarrass the Manmohan Singh Government. “We have fundamental differences with the BJP on the issue. We had opposed Pokhran-II and nuclear weaponisation and we continue to do so,” CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury told reporters in New Delhi on August 11.



That the CPI(M) would not insist on a sense of the House statement was evident when Yechury said the Left expected the Prime Minister’s reply to the debate on the Indo-US nuclear deal to address the concerns raised by them. “We want to be assured that the deal would not bind us to conditionalities. We had raised nine critical areas of departure made by the US from the July 2005 joint statement. The Government should reaffirm that these concerns would be addressed.” The Rajya Sabha is likely to take up a short debate on the sensitive issue on August 17, a notice for which has been served by the CPI(M).



The development is a major setback for the BJP leaders, who had taken upon themselves the task of delivering the Left’s backing for its attack on the nuclear deal. These leaders even got the party to align its stand on the US and nuclear policy to suit the Left’s taste.





NDA petitions President Kalam



Left in the lurch, a delegation of the National Democratic Alliance let by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee met President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam on Friday, August 11, to apprise him of their concerns on the India-US nuclear deal. They sought the President’s intervention to prevail upon the Government to accept the ‘sense of our Parliament.’



In a memorandum submitted to the President, the NDA said the bills approved by the U.S. House of Representatives and the Committee on Foreign Relations of the U.S. Senate (on the Indo-U.S. declaration signed by President George Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on July 18, 2005) held “serious implications for the autonomy of India’s decision-making, for the independence of its foreign policy, the integrity and reliability of our strategic options and the future of our scientific research.”



BJP leader L. K. Advani said the decisions of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate to impose “crippling conditionalities” on India had proved their worst apprehensions on the deal. In its memorandum, the NDA said the nuclear deal with the U.S. could not be acceptable to India unless it involved full nuclear cooperation with India, accorded India same rights as other nuclear weapon states, allowed Indian action at any stage to be only reciprocal and held that India would accept international inspections on its civil facilities or any binding obligation only after “all restrictions have been lifted.”



The delegation included JD(U) leader George Fernandes, Ananth Gete (Shiv Sena), Brij Kishore Tripathi (Biju Janata Dal) and BJP leaders Murli Manohar Joshi, Sushma Swaraj, V.K. Malhotra, Ananth Kumar, S.S. Ahluwalia and Santosh Gangawar.





Maximum alert on Independence Day



As India celebrates its Independence Day tomorrow, security has been placed on maximum alert in view of the warnings emanating from London on Al Qaeda plans to wreak havoc across the world. After a terror plot was busted in the UK, the Government has announced steps to make airports in the country safe and secure. Restrictions placed on aircraft bound for the US and Britain have been extended to all flights. The country’s nuclear establishments are also being guarded to avert any misadventure by Pakistan-based jehadi groups, responsible for a string of recent terrorist strikes in the country.



Delhi Police foiled a bid by militant groups to target the Independence day celebrations and arrested two militants of Lashkar-e-Taiba on August 10. RDX was seized from them. Delhi Police has made unprecedented security arrangements to prevent any action by militant outfits to disrupt the Independence Day celebrations and Janamashtmi celebrations, a day later on August 16.



Meanwhile, investigators probing the plot to blow up several aircraft from Britain to US have come across evidence of suspected involvement of four Islamic militant groups including Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba and Sunni extremist outfit, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. It has come to light that funds meant for quake relief in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir were used by Lashkar-e-Taiba and its front organization Jamaat-ud-Dawa for the Britain plot. The JUD had been allowed by the Pakistan Government last year to take part in the relief in the quake affected areas of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and North West Frontier province during which the outfit reportedly received large amounts of money for relief.



India and the United States had criticised Pakistan for permitting the jehadi outfits to take part in the relief work.



Meanwhile, National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan has admitted that terrorist organization Al Qaeda had a presence in the country through militant organizations like the Lashakr-e-Taiba. Narayanan held a security review meeting on Monday, August 7, with Maharashtra Police officials to coordinate efforts to check the designs of terrorist groups.



Meanwhile, Karnataka police say that they have come across information about the existence of Lashkar-e-Taiba cadres in the state and plots by them to carry out terrorist strikes in the state capital, Bangalore.



BJP President Rajnath Singh has demanded that India should take action to dismantle terrorist centres exiting in the neighbouring countries. Addressing the media at Panaji on Saturday, August 12, he said, “I demand that after taking the international community into confidence, India must attack terrorist centres in Pakistan and Bangladesh.”



“Neighbouring countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka are becoming hubs of terrorism. This situation is posing grave concern to Indian security,” Rajnath Singh alleged. Accusing the Centre of being “silent” on the issue of terrorism, he said that the UPA Government was not serious about this grave issue.



“India should immediately stop all the confidence building measures with Pakistan till they stop cross border terrorism,” he demanded.