Left to withdraw support from UPA govt

Earlier the Left parties had decided to wait for Singh's return from Japan on July 9 to withdraw from the government. However, things changed last evening when they saw PM's declaration last evening through various TV channels that India will soon approach the IAEA to complete the safeguards agreements. The PM has gone to attend the G-8 summit.

 

Furious at the PM's declaration that the UPA government will go ahead on the nuclear deal, the Left refused to show the courtesy of waiting till he came back. This is perhaps the first time in independent India's history that withdrawal of support to a particular government has been announced while he was abroad. After a meeting of the four Left parties, in a letter to External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat along with other prominent Left leaders charged the government with duplicity on past promises on the Indo-US Civil Nuclear Agreement, and said it was time to part ways.

The Left said they had been given to understand that "The government will proceed with talks and the outcome will be presented to the UPA-Left Committee on the nuclear deal for its consideration before it finalises its findings".

Till now, the "outcome of the talks", ie, the text of the Safeguards Agreements negotiated with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Secretariat has not been made available to the Committee.

Without the text, the Committee cannot come to any findings. 
 Since the UPA has refused to provide the text to the members of the Committee, no purpose will be served by having a meeting on July 10" the Left parties said.

" Your proposal for a meeting on July 10 is rendered meaningless since the Prime Minister, while travelling abroad, has chosen to announce that the government will be going to Board of Governors of the IAEA 'very soon'", the letter said.

"As you are aware, the Left parties had decided that if the government goes to the IAEA Board of Governors, they will withdraw support.  In view of the Prime Minister's announcement, that time has come," the Left parties said.

The four Left parties also tried to make a case for making the IAEA draft text public, on the grounds that it is necessary to clarify the major issues involved. The Left said its concern was the US terminating civilian nuclear cooperation with India for any reason in the future, against the background of  the Tarapur experience in 1983, reneging upon a thirty year contract signed in 1963. "The text of the 123 agreement has very ambiguous references to India taking "corrective measures" if nuclear fuel supplies from abroad are discontinued", the Left parties said. They said they needed to see the text of the agreement to ensure "corrective measures" were in place and how the IAEA would ensure fuel supply as it was only engaged with safeguards.

The Left parties are asking specific questions: