Deal yes, elections no: Allies tell govt

Through the evening on Monday, ally after ally met Gandhi and told her that while they had the greatest of respect for the PM and upheld the nuclear agreement as being of great importance to India's national interest, they wanted talks with the Left to continue.

While accepting that the nuclear deal was in the national interest because "it will provide us electricity", Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad also added that by mooting the deal, the Indian government was not prostrating before the US.

 

But he said the Left must be brought round to supporting the nuclear agreement and that India was not ready for an election yet. He urged the UPA chairman to continue talking to the Left parties.

"There is no problem in the world that has not been resolved through talking," he said.

"We were elected in 2004 to keep the communal BJP and RSS out of power. There are a whole lot of issues that still have to be resolved. There is inflation, which has to be reined in. This is not the time for election," Prasad said.

Gandhi invited several allies to her residence at 10 Janpath to hear their viewpoint on what should be done to resolve the logjam arising out of the conflicting views on the Indo-US civil nuclear agreement.

Ramvilas Paswan of the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) echoed Prasad's sentiments and said the Left parties were not anti-national and that they reflected legitimate concerns when they criticised the agreement. These concerns had to be addressed.

Earlier in the evening, Nationalist Congress Party leader Sharad Pawar also met Gandhi and told her his concerns about holding an election right now.

Although the other big constituent of the UPA, the M Karunanidhi-led Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam told the Left parties in no uncertain terms that they should get their act together to fight the BJP and that there was no way the DMK was going to jettison the UPA or the deal, he agreed with the Left that if there was a rift among secular forces, it would benefit only the BJP.

Karunanidhi, who has just 90 MLAs in the 235-member Tamil Nadu Assembly and is almost entirely dependent on the 35 Congress MLAs for the survival of the government, but shares an ideological affinity with the Left parties, is coming to Delhi later this week to hold talks with all the protagonists of the current political drama.

As the Congress appeared to be battling choppy waters, the Samajwadi Party with 39 MPs too upped the ante.

Conscious of its own compulsions of keeping a big Muslim votebank in UP intact, the SP said its support to the UPA could not be taken for granted and said it would have to consult its friends in the Third Front before taking a decision on whether it was going to support the UPA.