While Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal maintained that distributing the draft was not tantamount to formally approaching the IAEA, his contention that even this was done after the Left withdrew support was not accepted by the Opposition.
Sibal said he was only repeating "what I have been instructed to do" even as CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat termed it a shocking betrayal of the people on the nuclear deal.
Karat termed the government's move as contradictory of the assurance given by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee that the government would approach the IAEA only after winning a trust vote in Parliament.
Sibal, fielded on behalf of the government, said that after the Left withdrew support, the UPA-Left committee, which he termed a political committee beyond Parliament and the government, had no say in what the government did.
"The Left now cannot take umbrage at anything done by the government, since they have withdrawn support," he said.
Moreover, he said the process of circulation was not "decisive" and was more procedural. The government's defence rested on three points: one, the circulation of the draft to the IAEA board of governors was not decisive; second, the circulation was done after the Left withdrew support; and third, the government could not have handed over the draft to the Left since it was a restricted document under the IAEA and could be made public only after the circulation.
The draft agreement, which became public after being posted on the Ministry of External Affairs website, raised question whether it could have been made public earlier for the Left. "The document is a restricted one, and can become public only when the IAEA signals so," said Sibal. "Till we circulated it, it was not possible," he added.
Meanwhile, he revealed that Prakash Karat was not interested in the IAEA draft agreement. "Mr Karat, in most of the meetings of the UPA-Left committee, said he had no interest in the draft agreement, but in the 123," said Sibal.
"We assure you that we are going to formally go before the board of governors when they meet only after the government clears the floor test," he added.
