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Saturday, Oct 20, 2007
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Basu welcomes government stance on n-deal

Special Correspondent

“I hope government has now accepted Left’s viewpoint”
Fifth round of talks on nuclear deal on October 22

KOLKATA: The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s apparent shift in position on the India-U.S. nuclear deal and its decision to work for a consensus with the Left parties on the issue are “good as we too want the government to run its full course,” veteran Marxist leader Jyoti Basu said here on Friday.

“Both Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi have spoken about not going ahead with the nuclear deal for now and this is a good decision as we [the Left parties] want it so,” Mr. Basu said. He stated this after emerging from a meeting of the State Secretariat of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

At a function in New Delhi last week, the Prime Minister had reportedly said that attempts were on to “reconcile the divergent points of view” between the UPA and the Left parties on the nuclear deal.

UPA chairperson and Congress president Sonia Gandhi had said that a consensus was being favoured, adding, “we are still in the process of talking to them [the Left parties].”

“This [the differences in views on the deal between the UPA government and the Left] had become a major stumbling block and had almost led to the toppling of the government,” Mr. Basu said. “It [the government] has another one-and-a-half years to go and we want it to run its full course,” he added.

“I hope that the government has now accepted our [the Left parties’] points of view and it will carry on well [for the rest of its term],” Mr. Basu said.

The central committee of the CPI(M) at its last meeting earlier this month had demanded that the “UPA government should not proceed further with regard to the nuclear deal till it can be discussed in the winter session of Parliament.”

Fifth round of talks

The fifth round of talks of the UPA-Left committee on the nuclear deal is due on October 22.

Besides looking into the various objections raised by the Left parties to the 123 agreement, it will examine aspects of the Hyde Act and its implications on foreign policy and security-related matters.

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