Two days ahead of the crucial meeting of the Left-UPA political committee on the nuclear deal, the CPI(M) on Friday claimed that the party is happy that the Centre has ?accepted the Left stand.? The CPI(M) leaders also said that Left is expecting a formal assurance from the government during the meeting on Monday that the deal is put on hold.
?The UPA Government was about to fall over the Indo-US nuclear deal,? senior member of the CPI(M) politburo Jyoti Basu told reporters at Kolkata on Friday. ?I have heard they are not going to proceed with it and it is not taking place now. I am happy that the government has accepted the Left stand. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi have accepted the Left views. We want this government to run another one and half years because we don?t now want a mid-term poll,? the Left patriarch added.
The Congress and the government, however, were reiterating that the deal is not put in the backburner. The Prime Minister and AICC media department chairman M Veerappa Moily had said the other day that the deal is alive. ?I have not given up hope. A way out of the difficulties facing the pact had to be found,? the Prime Minister had told reporters on Thursday.
At Chennai, CPI(M)leader Sitaram Yechury said that the Left is expecting a ?formal? announcement from the government on the issue on Monday. ?We have raised objections over the harmful implications of the deal. It has been agreed to consider the findings of the UPA-Left committee on the deal before the government proceed to operationalise it,? he said.