Giving the Manmohan Singh government a two-month breathing space, the UPA-Left political mechanism, which held its first meeting here on Tuesday, tentatively decided on Tuesday to hold between four to five meetings in September and October to finalise its views on the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal.
Possibly aiming to time its schedule before the November board of governors meet at the IAEA where New Delhi is likely to take up the issue of India-specific safeguards agreement, the UPA-Left committee agreed to take up the three issues implications of the Hyde Act on the 123 agreement, its impact on India?s foreign policy and implications on nuclear programme and security cooperation one by one in each meeting.
External affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee also circulated a note to all those present at the meeting held at this residence. The note contained government?s views on these issues.
The next meeting of the mechanism will take place on September 19, Mukherjee told reporters in an impromptu briefing after the hour long meeting. He said the committee would discuss the implications of the Hyde Act, the implications of the deal on foreign policy and security co-operation in the coming days.The 15-member committee, a senior member said, also decided to hold the second meeting on October 4. Two or three meetings will be heldafter the dates are finalised.
Later talking to FE after the meeting, CPI general secretary AB Bardhan said members of different political parties would have to give their views in the next meeting. ?All the parties are supposed to respond to the terms of reference of the committee on September 19. We (the Left parties) will also give a written note on our understanding of the issue,? Bardhan said.
Bardhan, however, said that the Left has not given any direction on AEC chairman Anil Kakodkar’s visit to Vienna. ?Why should we give any direction? There was no discussion on this in the meeting. We have already made it clear that we are not opposing Kakodkar’s present visit to Vienna. India is a member of IAEA general council and it’s a routine affair that India is represented at the annual meeting,? he said.
A senior Left leader, who was also part of the discussion, said they are not taking minister of science and technology Kapil Sibal’s views on the deal seriously. ?He is not the spokesperson of the government and the mechanism is not a court of law. We are not taking his articulations seriously. This is a political mechanism.? Sibal is also a member of the committee, which also includes senior Congress ministers AK Antony, P Chidambaram, Saifuddin Soz and Prithviraj Chavan. The UPA llies NCP, DMK and RJD are represented by Sharad Pawar, TR Baalu and Lalu Prasad respectively.
The Left sources, however, said that they welcome Soz being a member of the committee. “We hope people like him will resist our country becoming an ally of the US,” the senior Left leader added.