Clearly determined to deny the government any flexibility on the nuclear deal, the Left seemed to adopt an even more rigid posture ahead of the joint committee meeting next week with CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat on Thursday saying that they will not compromise on the issue.
The Left assertion is also being seen as a direct response to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh?s clarification in Pretoria on Wednesday that the ?process to evolve a consensus? on the nuclear deal was still on. Addressing a public meeting in Mumbai, Karat said the deal will hurt India in every sphere of life and maintained that the Left will continue to support UPA government so long as the UPA stuck to the common minimum programme (CMP).
In the aftermath of the remarks by the Prime Minister and Congress president Sonia Gandhi last week that ??if the deal did not happen, it was not the end of the world??, Left parties have been waiting for a formal response from the Congress that the deal has been put on the backburner. Left leaders in fact have maintained that they are expecting a formal assurance from the government on October 22, when the UPA-Left panel meets.
Contradictory statements from various quarters, however, have put the Left on constant guard. The Congress party on Wednesday refuted suggestions that the deal has been put in cold storage. Congress media chairperson Veerappa Moily on Thursday said that the deal was ??neither put on hold nor was it moving forward??, while asserting that ?it is alive and did not need any life support?. The Bush administration, on the other hand, stated on Wednesday that the nuclear agreement was ?not dead? and hoped that it could still make it through the original timeframe of 2008.
Adding to the Left?s apprehensions, US officials here have increased engagement levels with Indian side. The American ambassador to India David Mulford met foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon on Thursday?his third meeting with Indian officials in a week. Earlier this week Mulford had met with joint secretary (Americas) Gayatri I Kumar besides also calling on external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee. The US, which was confident of pushing the deal through at different levels, had earlier indicated that they were confident that the Congress government would be able to find a way out of the Communist roadblock.