Left won't be there to help seal N-deal: Karat

In a clear message that it will pull the rug if the government went ahead with the Indo-US nuclear deal, the CPI(M) today said it would not be there to help the Congress-led coalition seal the deal.

"We won't be there to help this government conclude this agreement," CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat said at a conference here.

Referring to the political crisis triggered by the Left's rejection of the deal, Karat said, "The basic problem is that the rulers of our country have accepted (US Secretary of State) Condoleezza Rice's offer that the US will help India become a major power in the world."

He criticised the Manmohan Singh government's "insistence" on going ahead with the deal "bypassing Parliament" and ignoring the views of most parties, including the Left.

Karat also came down heavily on the prime minister for describing US President George W Bush as the "greatest friend of India," saying it was "supreme irony" that the "most hated president" in the US is the "greatest benefactor" of this government.

"I would like the prime minister to be very careful about choosing his friends," he said and referred to "Bush's other friends," like Shinzo Abe, who yesterday resigned as Japan's prime minister, and former British premier Tony Blair.

Karat said Blair resigned, Abe had to go, Australian Prime Minister John Howard is going and everybody knows about the condition of Bush's favourite ally Pervez Musharraf. "We don't want our prime minister in that category," he said.

Pointing out that the Left was not asking the government to scrap the deal, he said, "We are only saying that don't go now. Wait for some time. Consider our objections and let Parliament opine on it."

Karat said the separation plan, the Hyde Act and the 123 Agreement were the first three steps taken on the deal and the remaining two were the safeguards agreement with the IAEA and taking it to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

Alleging that the government had given a commitment to the Bush administration, he sought to know why that commitment was "overruling all the other commitments they (the UPA government) have in India."

"They have a common minimum programme (CMP) in India. They wrote it, not us," Karat said, adding that forging a strategic alliance with the US was not a part of the CMP.