UPA-Left meltdown

“The committee completed its discussions on all aspects of the India-US civil nuclear agreement. The next meeting of the committee, to be convened in due course, will finalise its findings,” said Mukherjee, after the 90-minute meeting, in the presence of senior CPM leader Sitaram Yechury.

“Due course,” Congress sources said, meant any time before the PM’s departure to Japan for the G8 Summit on June 7-9 if the deal has to survive. However, they admitted that a decision would need to be taken in the next few days. The Congress Working Committee is also expected to meet shortly given that Mukherjee is slated to visit Egypt on July 1-3. The party’s core group met late this evening at the PM’s residence where it backed the Prime Minister on the deal.

The day started with CPM General Secretary Prakash Karat going to Mukherjee’s residence, who met him along with Defence Minister A K Antony, and telling them that that there had been no change in the Left’s stand against the government approaching the IAEA to confirm the safeguards agreement.

This set off consultations within the Congress as Mukherjee then briefed Sonia and the PM. RJD leader Lalu Prasad Yadav, a key UPA ally, also met the PM in a bid to try and avert the possibility of a break-up with the Left. Senior Congress leaders, including Ahmed Patel, Political Secretary to the party president, and AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh, among others, held a meeting with Mukherjee ahead of the UPA-Left meeting.

But with the Left rigid and the government digging its heels in, the lines had been drawn. The meeting saw frayed tempers. “It was not a cordial meeting. They are not seeing reason in our argument,” a top Left leader, who attended the meeting, said.

The talks began with the government presenting its case for sealing the India-specific safeguards agreement. A note circulated by Mukherjee detailed the country’s energy requirements and the need for signing the agreement. The Left countered it with their own three-page note read out by Karat against the deal. The key point in his note: “Given the fact that the (IAEA) Board’s approval is required for going ahead with the nuclear deal, the Left cannot agree with this (the government confirming the safeguards agreement).”

Then the government tried to convince the Left that signing the safeguards agreement would not put the deal on auto-pilot mode as getting the NSG waiver is an even difficult task.

At this point, RSP General Secretary T J Chandrachoodan paraphrased a Malayalam saying that a goat is taken to the slaughter house by enticing it, step by step, with a bunch of leaves. He went on add that the Left was no goat which the Government could take for a ride. And that the Left would part ways with the ruling coalition if the government went to Vienna.

This irked Mukherjee, who then asked asked Karat pointedly whether he subscribed to Chandrachoodan’s views. Karat said yes and told Mukherjee that it reflected the Left’s collective decision.

Chandrachoodan did not stop at that and told the Government that the Left had been instrumental in keeping the BJP out of power in the last four years and it is now the UPA’s responsibility to keep the saffron party out for the next 10 months.

Without mincing words, Karat is understood to have told UPA leaders that they had “many opportunities” to tell the world that they were running a coalition government. Those present at the meeting told The Indian Express that RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav intervened to say that such a deep UPA-Left division would only end up helping the BJP.

The meeting ended on an uneasy note with both the sides even unable to fix the date for the next sitting. Some leaders even said they are not even sure whether there would be a next meeting. The mood of the meeting was summed by Union Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal who told some Left leaders after the meeting that “it is a sad day for us, for the nation.”