Karat meets Pranab, Sonia, but nuke deal divide refuses to bridge

In a last-ditch attempt to break the logjam over the Indo-US civil nuclear agreement, CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat and External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee held an unpublicised meeting at the latter's Talkatora Road residence.

However, chances of a reconciliation between the Left and the UPA looked slim even after the two conversed with each other for over 45 minutes.

According to highly placed sources in the Left, Karat showed no sign of a change of stand and asked the government to reconsider its decision to go ahead with talks with the IAEA. He made no new proposals and apparently remained unmoved by the government's talk on "concessions".

When asked if a mid-term election could be avoided, Mukherjee told Business Standard, "I am always an optimist."

Karat reportedly told Mukherjee the Left would not allow the IAEA talks to go ahead. The CPI(M) feels once the government gets India-specific safeguards in place, the agreement of the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG) and the final ratification by the US Congress will follow automatically. The CPI(M) and other Left parties will put their entire effort to kill the deal at the only available opportunity.

Congress managers feel the issue has become more of an "ego tussle" between the two sides. The war of words, which started with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's challenge to the Left that "If they want to withdraw support, so be it" is gaining momentum day by day.

"In politics, sometimes small things create big issues and objective analysis loses ground to personal egos. Karat, being a hardcore Communist ideologue, has taken the nuclear deal with the US very seriously," said a senior minister.

The UPA-Left nuclear committee is meeting tomorrow and will take up foreign policy issues for discussion. On October 18, the CPI(M) Politburo is meeting in Kolkata to further discuss the issue. If by then, the committee on the nuclear agreement wraps up its proceedings, the Politburo meeting could be discussing a mid-term election.

Later in the day, Karat met UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and conveyed the Left parties' view that the government could not go ahead with negotiations with the IAEA or anyone else for operationalising the deal, Left sources said.

External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Defence Minister AK Antony were present during the meeting, besides CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury. The Congress core group is meeting tonight to discuss the course of action.