Left takes debate to UPA table

After being cajoled by top UPA leaders, the Left parties agreed to attend the UPA-Left coordination meeting on February 13. Their key concer...

After being cajoled by top UPA leaders, the Left parties agreed to attend the UPA-Left coordination meeting on February 13. Their key concerns on FDI in retail, India’s vote on the Iran issue and privatisation of profit-making PSUs, they said, would be addressed at the meeting.

UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and her political secretary Ahmed Patel spoke to CPI(M) leaders, who then prevailed upon the other Left parties to agree to a fresh date for the coordination meeting.

Patel called CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat on Monday evening to first suggest there should be no change to Wednesday’s scheduled coordination meeting.

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Feelers were also sent to the Left that staying away from the scheduled meeting, to enable the Left parties to “review the UPA’s performance”, was not conducive to a healthy relationship between the UPA and the Left.

While the decision to take part in the meeting was taken earlier in the day, CPI(M) Politburo member Sitaram Yechury met UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi in the evening on the issue. Asked about the Left parties’ decision to defer their February 8 meeting with the UPA, the CPI(M) leader said the government was disregarding the Left’s views on issues that also went against the National Common Minimum Programme. He was told

that the Left’s concerns were serious issues and needed to be discussed at the coordination meetings.

Till late on Tuesday, RSP and Forward Bloc leaders —- who had pointed to instances of how the UPA was disregarding the Left’s objections to key issues —- said they had not been informed of the new date for the UPA-Left coordination meeting.

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But agreeing to go for the February 13 UPA-Left meeting did not temper the government’s response to the Left’s demand for a debate in Parliament on the Iran issue.

A spokesman for the government said Left leaders had been informed last week during their meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that India would vote with the majority on Iran in the IAEA. This was based on the advice given by the Ministry of External Affairs.

To the Left’s suggestion that India should vote along with other NAM countries, he pointed out that there was a three-way split within NAM on the issue —- three voted against, five abstained and six countries (excluding India) voted against Iran to report it to the Security Council.

Even here, India voted with the majority group in NAM. The split in NAM, the spokesman said, ought not to be a surprise because NAM countries have never voted unitedly on nuclear issues.

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