Review N-power plans: Karat

“We have seen what happened in Japan,” he said referring to the incidents at Fukushima in Japan. “We demand immediate stoppage of any new nuclear plant before a proper review is done,” Karat said.

“We will also have to look at how nuclear power plant projects are taking off. A fisherman died in Maharashtra while protesting. Local people have put up resistance against the project,” he said.

Environmentalists, local farmers and fishermen have been protesting for months over the proposed six-reactor nuclear power plant on the coastal plains of Jaitapur, 420 km south of Mumbai. A local fisherman was shot dead on Monday when protesters attacked the local police station.

Asked whether he regretted the decision to withdraw support from the UPA government, Karat said it was necessary. “Whether we could have withdrawn support even before that or not will be discussed in the party later on,” he said.

Although he defended the party's withdrawal of support from the UPA, Karat welcomed the step to bring veterans like Somnath Chatterjee and Ashoke Mitra in pre-poll campaigns. Somnath Chatterjee was expelled from the party three years back after he decided to preside over the Lok Sabha trust vote despite a diktat from the party to step down from the speaker's post. Left Front withdrew support from the government over the Indo-US civil nuclear deal.

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