UPA-Left meet on nuke deal postponed

The meeting of the UPA-Left Committee on the Indo-US nuclear deal scheduled for November 16 has been postponed due to the winter session of the Parliament beginning the day before, according to CPI (M) Secretary D Raja.

This has been formally communicated to the Left parties by the ruling alliance, said Raja, who is part of the 15-member panel with External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee as its convenor.

The meeting is likely only after the session, which concludes on December 7. The move has come even as CPI General Secretary Prakash Karat had said earlier that the Left has not sought any postponement and neither the government has indicated its decision to defer it.

While there were reports that the November 16 meeting could have been the last of the panel, both sides had indicated that there could be more talks.

The UPA-Left Committee was constituted a few months ago as a joint mechanism to sort out differences between the Congress-led coalition at the Centre and the outside supporters Left parties on the deal.

The Left parties have threatened the government with serious consequences if it goes ahead with operationalising the deal and at one point, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had dared them to withdraw support to his government on the issue.

The political temperature was brought down sharply last month when the prime minister made conciliatory statement on the deal and Congress President Sonia Gandhi conceded that the Left demands were not unreasonable.

The government moves to have a discussion on the deal in the last session of Parliament had come a cropper due to frequent stalling of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha by the opposition BJP as also the United National Progress Alliance (UNPA), which wanted a joint parliamentary committee to go into the deal.

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The meeting will now be held only after the winter session of the Parliament, which concludes on December 7

The move has come even as CPI General Secretary Prakash Karat had said earlier that the Left has not sought any postponement and neither the government has indicated its decision to defer it