The spectre of a snap poll before the country in the wake of the standoff between the UPA and the Left on the nuclear issue receded on Tuesday with the government agreeing not to operationalise the deal for some more time following pressure from the Left as well as coalition partners.
The government is now unlikely to push for India specific safeguards at the November meeting of the IAEA board of governors in Vienna, even though a substantive compromise continues to evade the ruling coalition, top sources said. Rejecting the contention that the Left parties seemed to have prevailed over the government, the sources said it was decided not to push ahead with the operationalisation process simply because there was still some flexibility in this regard. ??The government is not falling. There will be no snap poll,?? railway minister Lalu Prasad told reporters after the joint meeting .
Allies within the UPA were believed to have pressured the Congress leadership against destabilising the government. ??When the government is not there, how can the deal be passed??? a senior alliance partner reportedly told Congress members at the joint committee which met this afternoon to discuss the nuclear agreement. While he did endorse the agreement, saying it was good for the country, his contention was that it would not see the light of the day if the Left withdrew support to the government.
The government thinking of putting the deal on hold for some time was understood to have been conveyed to the Left by Congress president Sonia Gandhi when she met CPI-M party general secretary Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechury. Political circles pointed out to the subtle shift in the Left position, contending that it was a consequence of the meeting with Ms Gandhi. ??Our agenda is the (Indo-US) nuclear deal. It is not mid-term election and not destabilisation. We are saying don?t proceed with the deal. Once they take a decision, we will then decide what to do,?? Yechury said this evening after a two-hour meeting of the four Left parties here. Mr Yechury also signalled they were okay with IAEA chief Mohammed ElBaradei?s visit here and his meetings with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday.
The two sides are now scheduled to hold the fifth round of discussions on October 22. ??The members shared in detail their perceptions on various aspects of the cooperation agreement between India and the US. Discussions were also initiated on the implications of the nuclear agreement on foreign policy and security cooperation,?? external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee said after the two-hour long meeting of the panel. “Discussions were also initiated on the implications of the Indo-US nuclear agreement on foreign policy and security co-operation,?? he added.
After the Left-UPA meeting, Left parties held a separate meeting to discuss the situation.??We are going by the understanding that the government will not operationalise the deal unless the Left-UPA comes up with its findings. These findings should be taken into account before operationalising the deal,?? Sitaram Yechury said after the meeting.