To make it blink, UPA allies try to look Left in the eye

This also gives all sides more time to work on the backchannel which became active after Pawar and Karat broadly agreed on the political reality that early elections were not in favour of either the Congress, the UPA allies or the Left. They also agreed that the current political coalition will have to stick together after the elections, regardless of the results.

In this context, sources said, a solution is being explored on the lines that the Left allows the government to approach the IAEA Board on the basis of certain “unwritten assurances” that amount to not signing the 123 agreement. The Left, however, has shown no signs of relent on such a proposal so far.

While it is willing to reconsider its stance on allowing the government to go to Vienna to confirm the India-specific safeguards agreement, the Left is not prepared to accept anything short of an explicit public assurance that the government won’t sign the 123 Agreement.

It is clear that the government cannot offer such an assurance. However, sources said, the question is for the Left “to be sure for what the government assures” and if a way is found on this, there could be a possible breakthrough though no signs were imminent today.

That was where talks were held up as External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee held separate meetings with Karat and CPI national secretary D Raja later in the evening. After their meetings, both Left leaders said there was no progress.

Mukherjee later drove to Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s residence to brief her on the results of his talks with UPA partners as also with the Left allies in the past two days. “There is any neither deterioration nor improvement on the nuclear deal issue,” said Mukherjee today.

“We conveyed our position (to Mukherjee). There is no change in our stand,” Karat told The Indian Express. Another top CPM leader said today that the day the government goes ahead with the safeguards agreement, the Left will break away and “once we break, we will be on the other side of the political divide.”

Left leaders insist they have shown flexibility on several contentious issues but the UPA cannot expect the same approach in the case of the nuclear deal. “Even if we end up with 10 seats in the next Lok Sabha elections, we will not allow the deal to happen,” a senior leader said.

A generally recluse CPM general secretary made the Left position clear at a public function here when he reminded the UPA government that it has several unfinished agendas and commitments other than the nuclear deal. In a veiled reference to the nuclear deal, he said the Prime Minister had some time back said that his was not a “one-issue government” and he hoped that the Government would continue its full term to implement the commitments, one of them he identified as providing 27 per cent reservation for OBCs in private higher educational institutions.

“All this I am speaking hoping that the government will continue its full term. We are trying to make serious efforts. Sometime back, the Prime Minister has said that we are not a one-issue government. The UPA has other agenda also to fulfil,” he said.

“We are talking to all UPA allies, they are not allies of Congress alone. They are our allies also. We are telling them to understand our position,” said CPI’s Raja, who also met Karat.

Earlier in the day, Pawar explained to Karat the issue of the government’s credibility and urged him to look at solutions. Their meeting had been preceded by Pawar’s meeting with Mukherjee. The Left, however, remained apprehensive that if it allowed the government to proceed, the deal would get into auto-pilot mode. CPM Politburo member Sitaram Yechury had conveyed the same to RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav on Thursday.

After the meeting, Pawar said the concerns of the Left parties should be addressed. “Why they (Left) are saying this? The way of saying may be different,” he said.

While the UPA partners support the government’s stance, they maintain that the Left should also be taken along.

Karat was learnt to be sceptical of the UPA government’s assurance about taking a sense of Parliament before operationalising the deal. The Left leaders were learnt to have conveyed to UPA partners including the RJD and the NCP that they were not convinced that the government would keep its word.

UPA partners like the NCP and the RJD are wary of going for elections as, like the Left and unlike the Congress, they also have a limited base in certain states and they had everything to lose. One of the government interlocutors said that the Left also had to consider that even if the Congress lost the next Lok Sabha election, it would still have several states under it. The NCP and the RJD negotiators have therefore been arguing with the Left leaders to work together on this issue.

As the Congress was determined to proceed further with the deal, the UPA partners have been arguing with the Left that the latter should allow the government to go to Vienna and they would find “some way” to ensure that it did not go any further. To rally support for the deal, Congress President Sonia Gandhi was learnt to have sent a letter to DMK chief M Karunanidhi urging him to publicly support the UPA government’s stance on going ahead.

With these UPA partners showing cracks due to the prospects of mid-term polls, the Congress today also lowered its pitch saying that while the deal was in the national interest, the party would like to take along the Left which had supported the government for over four years. Congress spokesperson Shakeel Ahmed also denied that there would be any loss of face if the government did not go ahead with the deal. He cited Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s remarks earlier that the UPA government was not a one-issue government. Ahmed also rubbished reports about the PM offering to resign over the nuclear deal.