CPM will pullout if Govt goes ahead with N-deal: Karat

Party general secretary Prakash Karat told reporters here that “going to the Board of Governors of the IAEA for approval of the safeguards agreement will be a flagrant violation of the understanding arrived at the November 16, 2007 meeting of the UPA-Left Committee on the nuclear deal.”

Reading out a statement of the Politburo, he told the Congress and its allies that “in case the government decides to go ahead with such a harmful agreement, which has no support in Parliament, the CPI(M) will withdraw support to the UPA Government in concert with other Left parties.”

The meeting of the Politburo was held amidst the deadlock over the nuclear deal “arising out of the Prime Minister and the Congress leadership’s insistence on going ahead” with it.

It also came in the backdrop of efforts by the Congress to reach out to the Samajwadi Party to seek support for the deal in the event of the Left parties pulling the rug.

The CPI(M) statement was harsh on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the Congress leadership over the deal and the Government’s ‘abject failure’ to tackle inflation.

The CPI(M) and the Left parties would unitedly launch an intensive campaign to expose the government’s ‘surrender’ of national interests on the deal and its ‘failure’ to curb price rise.