The Hindu : Front Page : Manmohan must clear the air, says SP

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Thursday, Jul 03, 2008
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Manmohan must clear the air, says SP

Special Correspondent

Mr. Amar Singh at his residence after meeting Mr. Narayanan.

NEW DELHI: Hours before the crucial meeting of the United National Progressive Alliance (UNPA), the Samajwadi Party on Wednesday identified communalism as the biggest threat to the nation and maintained that its position on the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal would remain unchanged till the government addressed all the apprehensions raised by the Left parties.

Briefing mediapersons after his hour-long meeting with National Security Adviser (NSA) M. K. Narayanan at an undisclosed location, Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh said the Prime Minister should publicly address all the apprehensions raised by the Left parties on the deal. “The ball is in the Prime Minister’s court; not even in the hands of the Congress leadership. I met the NSA, not a Congress leader.”

Among the questions that the Samajwadi Party wants explained is India’s vote against Iran in the International Atomic Energy Agency. The Samajwadi Party leaders – besides Mr. Singh, Lok Sabha member Ram Gopal Yadav also attended the meeting with the NSA – echoed the very same questions raised by the Left parties about the deal.

Stressing the need for the Prime Minister to clear the air over the nuclear deal, Mr. Singh said such a clarification would only raise his stature. About Thursday’s UNPA meeting, he said the Samajwadi Party would present to the other constituents of the alliance the details of the discussion with the NSA and any other communication that might be forthcoming from the government on the deal ahead of the meeting.

— Photos: Shanker Chakravarty

CRUCIAL TALKS: Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh coming out of party general secretary Amar Singh’s residence, prior to a meeting with National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan in New Delhi on Wednesday.

Before the meeting between the SP leadership and the NSA, the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Jaswant Singh, met Mr. Amar Singh at his residence. About this meeting, the Samajwadi Party leader said Mr. Jaswant Singh sought to explain his understanding of the deal as a former External Affairs Minister.

“We explained to him that our position on the deal was clear from the stance we took inside and outside Parliament. But, we have our compulsions. For us, the bigger danger is communalism and Uttar Pradesh is the land of Ayodhya, Kashi and Mathura. It is the laboratory of Hindutva. We do not want Godhra to be repeated,” he said.

There was no meeting ground between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Samajwadi Party. “We are here to defeat communal forces,” he added.

That the Samajwadi Party is being guided in its decision by political compulsions specific to Uttar Pradesh is something that its leadership has communicated to leaders of other UNPA constituents. SP leader Mulayam Singh Yadav is understood to have told the UNPA partners about the threat posed to his party by the Bahujan Samaj Party which he fears could emerge stronger in the next Lok Sabha election.

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