Nuke deal: SP likely to back govt

Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Amar Singh today met Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee to work out the details of his party's support to the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in case the Left parties pull out in protest against the nuclear deal with the US.

With the SP having 39 MPs, this was the break the 239-strong UPA government had been seeking while projecting a dream political scenario: Shored up by support from the SP, the government can approach the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as a majority government in its bid to operationalise the deal.

"In a democracy, channels of dialogue are always open," party spokesperson Jayanti Natrajan said when asked if back-channel talks were on with the SP. What the SP has asked for in return is not clear. It was to work out the agreement that the two leaders were expected to meet.

A large part of the CPI(M) was conscious that it had lost control of the brinkmanship it had initiated on the deal and was bitter about the SP's "betrayal".

"A year ago, the Congress was ready to use Article 356 to bring down the Samajwadi Party government in UP and we vehemently opposed the move. Today, the two parties have joined hands against us", said a top CPI(M) leader. 
 

HOW EVENTS MAY TURN OUT
July 3	Mulayam Singh Yadav-led UNPA meets to take a stand on the nuclear deal. Yadav likely to support the Congress, and the UNPA breaks. What does Yadav get in return? It's under discussion.
July 4	The four Left parties meet to finalise the separation plan and future strategy.
July 4-7	The Congress convenes its working committee meeting and authorises the prime minister to go ahead with the nuclear deal.
July 7	The prime minister goes to Japan to meet US President George Bush. Assures him his government is for the deal.
July second week	The government is likely to announce it is going to Vienna to meet the IAEA Board of Governors. The Left withdraws support to the UPA government.
July second week	The government plots strategy for IAEA and NSG meets so that everything is completed in time for the September session of US Congress

The CPI(M) believes the meeting of the so-called Third Front called by SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav on July 3 "" supposedly to confer on the choices before the UNPA "" will be formality and Yadav will use the occasion to announce his support to the UPA "in national interest".

However, one section of the CPI(M) believed the Congress and the SP represented forces that could never coexist and had joined up with the sole aim of preventing an early election on the issue of the nuclear deal.

At a meeting to release a report on climate change, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said: "I see the issue of the nuke deal has created an amount of interest across the country. If the government goes to the IAEA and the NSG and completes the nuclear deal process, we will come back to Parliament for a sense of the House before operationalising the deal".

To Singh's observation, CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat said: "There is nothing new in the PM's stand. We also stick by our Politburo decision."

Privately, Left leaders said Singh's statement was "rubbish" as a sense of the House would be irrelevant after the agreement was sealed.

The four Left parties will meet on July 4 to discuss the future strategy and the separation plan. They will also discuss ways to attack the government on two issues: Price rise and allowing communal forces to gain ground.

Freed of the Left's fetters, it is not clear if the UPA government will push through some legislation that the Left parties have been blocking.

Government managers will no doubt give thought to the Foreign Universities Bill, the Pension Fund Bill and a host of other market-related legislation. The SP has expressed it opposition to such measures but now, in the changed political reality, it may be persuaded to review its stand.