Even as the CPI(M)?s central leadership has called for ?pro-aam aadmi? energy resources, its senior leader Jyoti Basu on Friday said that the Indo-US nuclear deal was for atomic energy and hoped that the stand-off between the Left and the UPA government on the issue would ease soon.
?The Indo-US nuclear deal is for nuclear energy. Nuclear energy is necessary and there is a need for nuclear power plants. With new industries mushrooming, the demand for power will increase,? Basu said after the party?s state secretariat meeting in Kolkata.
Basu?s nod comes two days after West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya?s assertion that nuclear energy is important for industrial development.
Statements of both the leaders are a clear deviation from the CPI(M) central committee?s stand that the country should concentrate on other cheaper sources such as thermal power. The party has maintained that coal-based power generation is cheaper compared to nuclear energy. ?Not only will it cost twice as much, it will cost three times as much money to build a plant with imported nuclear reactor,? the CPI(M) had said in a statement recently.