Don't push N-deal if you lose trust vote: CPI(M)

"We wish to warn this government that in case you lose the trust vote, don't try and push the nuclear deal. The country will revolt," party General Secretary Prakash Karat said after a two-day meeting of the CPI(M) Central Committee.     

Maintaining that the struggle against the nuclear deal would continue, he said one phase of this struggle was the trust vote. "The deal will be doomed and the government will be doomed on July 22."     

Charging the government with public betrayal, he said it had promised that the next step on the safeguards agreement would be taken only after the trust vote. Instead, "we see the spectacle of our officers scurrying to Vienna to try and hustle through the safeguards agreement with the (IAEA) Board of Governors."     

"You have already bypassed Parliament. You have also gone back on a public pledge because you are committed to (US) President (George W) Bush," Karat told the government.     

Accusing the UPA of taking "desperate and unscrupulous steps to engineer defections", he said the Congress and the Samajwadi Party were trying to mobilise the support of unaffiliated MPs using "money power and unscrupulous methods".     

"It is a shame on this government to use the votes of convicted criminals to sustain themselves in power," he said noting the difference between MPs who were convicted and those who were undertrials.