Basu rules out Left tango with BJP over nuke deal

KOLKATA: CPM Polit Bureau member and former West Bengal chief minister Jyoti Basu said on Monday that the four Left parties would not join hands with the BJP to vote against the Congress-led UPA government in the parliament over the India-US nuclear deal.

“We may shout against the government on the floor of Parliament along with the BJP as we have reservations about the proposed nuclear deal. But under no circumstances, will we vote against the UPA government. We don’t want the fall of the Union government right now,” Mr Basu said after attending a meeting of the CPM state committee on Monday morning.

Mr Basu’s remarks have, however, cleared all confusions in political circles at the national level that the four Left parties might join hands with the BJP to pull down the government over the issue of the nuclear deal.

Last week, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had reacted sharply over the CPM and other Left parties move to join hands with the BJP to thwart the government’s move to finalise the deal with the US government. Dr Singh told a CPI delegation that the role of the Left parties over the nuclear deal issue could have been led to the downfall of the government.

There is no doubt that the prime minister, by making such a harsh comment, had attempted to resist the Left parties continuous efforts to influence the government’s foreign policy. The CPM Polit Bureau which met in New Delhi last month, had discussed the issue at length and decided to oppose the deal until and unless the Union governments cleared all the confusions over the proposed deal with the US government. The CPM had also demanded a resolution detailing the contours of the nuclear deal as the party felt that there were deviations between the Bush-Manmohan agreement and the Union government’s current move to finalise the deal.

CPM’s all India general secretary Prakash Karat had also told the media that his party would not hesitate to take support of the BJP to oppose the deal in the floor of the parliament. Though Mr Karat did not specify whether the CPM and four Left parties would vote against the Manmohan Singh government over the issue in Parliament, speculations were on that the Leftists might do so.

But Mr Basu’s observations on the nuclear deal issue has cleared all the confusions and it is now clear that Manmohan Singh government should not suffer from any sense of insecurity right now over the issue. However, the CPM Polit Bureau will meet again at Kolkata in September to discuss the issue. It is expected that nuclear deal issue will not be resolved before that.