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UPA-Left : Uneasy truce to save Govt., buy time for elections |
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B.I. Saini
The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and the Left parties, whose support keeps the Manmohan Singh Government in power, have reached an uneasy truce on the India-US civilian nuclear deal. The truce hammered out on Thursday, August 30, after almost a week of deliberations between top leaders of the Congress and the Left provides for the setting up of a political level committee to go into the Left’s objections to the landmark 123 agreement with the United States, which seeks to end India’s isolation in the global nuclear regime, but which the Left says, makes India a strategic partner of Washington.
There is something for both sides in the UPA-Left deal. The Left parties, which were insisting earlier that the ‘pause’ button must be pressed on the nuclear deal, pending a thorough examination of the implications for India’s independent foreign policy, have now agreed to content themselves with the key clause in the deal which says, “the operationalisation of the deal will take into account the committee’s findings.” The statement announcing the agreement reached between the UPA and the Left stops short of an assurance that the nuclear deal is being put on hold. But the language is such that while the Left has the scope to claim victory in its confrontation with the UPA on the nuclear deal, the Government has been emboldened to say that it is incorrect to claim that the nuclear deal has been put on hold.
Already both sides are coming out with different and perhaps conflicting interpretations of the August 30 truce. Both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who has staked his political future on the successful implementation of the nuclear deal with the United States, and Congress president and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi have been talking now of how the Indo-US deal serves India’s interests, directly contradicting the Left’s view of the deal. Sonia Gandhi has openly congratulated the Prime Minister and Indian negotiators on hammering out a treaty that satisfies all conditions laid out in Parliament. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, speaking in Mumbai on August 31, without mentioning the 123 agreement or the differences with the Left over the civilian nuclear deal, made it clear that India cannot afford to miss the bus of nuclear renaissance after three decades of isolation.
The Left on its part is keeping up the tirade against the Indo-US nuclear deal. Speaking in Kolkata on August 31, CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat announced the launch of a nationwide campaign from Sept. 4 to 15 against the deal and the quadrilateral Naval exercise in the Bay of Bengal which the Left has strongly opposed. The CPI(M) chief warned the Congress against taking a decision on the nuclear deal in a hurry. He said the Congress should not misjudge the Left and called upon the Manmohan Singh Government to freeze further negotiations on the nuclear deal and ‘not to hurry.’
It is increasingly becoming clear that the uneasy truce between the Congress-led UPA and the Left is just a holding exercise to give time to all parties to prepare for a verdict from the people. The Left, especially the West Bengal unit of the CPI(M), is aware that it has everything to lose in the case of a snap poll forced on the country on the nuclear issue. Top leaders of the West Bengal unit of the CPI(M) are opposed to any action which leads to the fall of the Manmohan Singh Government at the Centre and leads to fresh Lok Sabha elections. They are aware that the nuclear deal is not an emotive issue on which people could be expected to come out in support of the Left parties.
The Congress, on its part, also needs time to firm up ties with other constituents of the UPA, which while supporting the Government’s stand on the nuclear deal, may not be too happy at the prospect of a mid-term poll. Several constituents may not be able to retain their strength in the Lok Sabha at the next battle at the hustings. As an opinion poll has indicated, the only clear winners in case of a fresh poll would be the Congress and Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh. The possibility of new alignments emerging in case there is no option left, but fresh polls, cannot be ruled out.
The best thing in the circumstances for the Manmohan Singh Government, which is dominated by the Congress, would have been to order fresh polls, when its stand on the crucial nuclear deal with the United States was not supported, as it appears, by a majority in Parliament. This would have taken the issue to the people, who would have come out with their verdict on the deal which the Congress considers as historic and in India’s long-term national interest.
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