Left wants to know when, Cong in no hurry to tell

Sat, Jul 5 02:44 AM

With the Samajwadi Party (SP) ready to step in to save the government, the UPA looked in no mood to oblige the Left which today sought to know when the Government intended to approach the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for the India-specific safeguards agreement.

Though External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee was set to reply shortly to the Left's letter, official sources said the government would not divulge the exact date of its next step on the Indo-US nuclear deal.

Although the ruling camp sounded sure of securing a majority in Parliament with the help of the SP, the JD(S), the RLD and other minor parties in the event of the Left withdrawing support, it did not want to precipitate matters before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Japan for the G-8 summit. The issue came up for discussion at the Congress Core Group meeting on Friday evening.

With the SP spoiling their grand plans to pull down the Government, a desperate Left went into a huddle today and set a three-day deadline to the ruling coalition to spell out in clear terms whether it was proceeding to approach the IAEA Board.

The usual belligerence was missing in the three-paragraph letter that they shot off to Mukherjee. "We wish to know definitely whether the Government is proceeding to seek the approval of the safeguards agreement by the Board of Governors of the IAEA. Please let us know the position by July 7," it said.

The intention was to make the Government state whether and when it intended to approach the IAEA before the PM leaves for Japan where he will discuss the deal with US President George W Bush.

But minutes after setting the deadline, CPM Politburo member Sitaram Yechury gave a public statement saying the Left would not pull the plug until the Prime Minister returned. The reasoning: "We have always been considerate. We have kept the dignity of the Prime Minister's office and the nation. We will not take any step when he (the Prime Minister) is there (at the G-8 summit)."

Yechury's comments left the RSP fuming. "Why should we show the courtesy when the Government is not showing any," a senior RSP leader asked.

The Left parties are likely to meet here on July 8, a day after the deadline expires to decide their future strategy. Since the Government is not planning to give away its exact plan, the Left will have to re-draw their game plan.

Sources in the Left said the window for withdrawal of support would be between July 9 and July 14, the day the Left will launch a nation-wide campaign to explain to the people the reasons for their opposition to the deal with the US.

A sense of disappointment of not getting a chance to pull down the Government over the deal issue was clearly visible in the Left camp. According to the Left parties, today's letter came against the backdrop of "various pronouncements being made by leaders of the ruling coalition and some Union ministers that the Government is going ahead with the nuclear deal," CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat read out from the letter sent to Mukherjee.

The Congress, meanwhile, launched a scathing attack on the Left calling it "impulsive" for "shooting off" a letter to Mukherjee and making it public even before it reached him. "It smacks of lack of courtesy. Are they (Left) driven by desperation? Are they frustrated?" AICC media cell chairperson M Veerappa Moily told reporters here.

The Left meeting discussed the SP's "opportunistic crossover" and the timing of the withdrawal. Both the RSP and Forward Bloc argued that the support should be withdrawn immediately as there was no point in waiting since the Government and the Congress leadership were giving enough indications that they were going ahead with the deal.

But the CPM and CPI leaders prevailed over them and instead decided to ask the Government to spell out its plan. The letter was dispatched as the meeting was underway.

With the crisis over the nuclear deal dominating the political discourse, the Left today also decided to include the Government's "anti-people policies", "refusal to take appropriate measures to tackle the runway inflation and backbreaking prices" in their agitation agenda in a bid to deflect attention from the deal to avert a possible middle-class backlash.

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