Hyderabad (PTI): The Left Parties on Sunday accused the UPA government of trying "to cap" a strategic partnership with the United States by the Indo-US nuclear deal and willfully violating the Common Minimum Programme that commits it to pursue an independent foreign policy.

"We are watching with deep concern the government's policies which, step by step, are leading to a close strategic partnership between India and the US. The nuclear deal is not just an innocent attempt to gain access to nuclear energy but an attempt to cap the strategic partnership," party General Secretary A B Bardhan said while inaugurating the party's 20th National congress here.

Referring to the recent negotiations with International Atomic Energy Agency on India-specific Safeguards Agreement, he said, we have no problems with the safeguard agreement, our problem is with the Indo-US nuclear agreement.

The Left parties, he said, have not yet come to grips with the substance of the Safeguards Agreement and it was on the agenda of the joint UPA-Left Committee.

Speaking at the Congress as a fraternal delegate, CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat also touched upon the nuclear deal issue, saying the Left should continue the battle for disengaging India from the strategic embrace of the United States.

"The Left has been the bulwark for the defence of national sovereignty. When the BJP brand of nationalists began shamelessly to woo United States as a natural ally and when the current dispensation is eagerly pursuing a strategic alliance with the imperialist superpower, it is only the Left which has remained steadfast in opposing any strategic alliance with US," Karat said.

Objecting to India entering into huge deals with the military-industrial complex in America for military hardware and helping in sending the Israeli spy satellite into space, Bardhan said the government was willfully violating the CMP which commits the UPA to pursue an independent foreign policy aimed at promoting multi-polarity in world relations and opposing all attempts at unilateralism which is what US pursues.

We want friendship with all countries including America, but subservience to none, he said.

The CPI leader said the US imperialism's real plan was to impose its hegemony over the world and it has a grand design over Asia which includes India as an ally.