An emergency meeting was held at Congress President Sonia Gandhi's residence today, following a virtual breakdown in communication between the United Progressive Alliance and the Left parties on the Indo-US civil nuclear agreement.
The UPA-Left committee was to have discussed the agreement today but this has been deferred to June 25. Meanwhile, signals emanating from both sides suggest they are bracing themselves for the inevitable parting of ways, with the prospect of an early General Election more real now than ever before.
The area of contention continues to be what it has been all these months: whether the draft of the agreement India is to sign with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) should be shared with the Left parties in its entirety or whether they would just take the Congress' word for it that the IAEA agreement would be a passport for India for unfettered global commerce in civil nuclear energy, rather than a sell-out to the US as the Left is claiming.
It was not just Gandhi who held discussions with colleagues. CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat held a meeting of the Left parties after separately consulting some Left leaders in the morning. More strategy meetings will take place in the two camps over the rest of this week as both sides want to appear as if they are taking a hard negotiating position.
A top Congress minister told Business Standard, "The Congress has taken a tough stand on this issue. The government has had enough. We are looking at the Left with a no-nonsense attitude."
After meeting an adamant Karat on Tuesday night, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee had a long discussion with Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and also West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.
"If our stand leads to General Election, then we have no choice but to face them. There is a constitutional obligation to form a Lok Sabha within six months of the fall of a government," a minister said. "Now the decision is whether to bypass the Left and go ahead. That is a political decision and Sonia Gandhi will take that call," another minister added.
From meetings with the main Left protagonist, Prakash Karat, Left leaders came away with the impression that the Congress might force an election but was not ready to jettison the agreement. Karat told Left leaders that the "pro-deal lobby" in the Congress had become stronger.
However, on-record positions of the two groups suggested they were still ready for negotiations: the Left parties said they wanted to see the draft of the IAEA agreement, while Pranab Mukherjee said the visit of the Syrian president had caused the postponement of the meeting.
