N-liability Bill: PM reaches out to Left,gets a firm no

About 20 months after the Left parties withdrew support to the UPA government over the Indo-US nuclear deal....

About 20 months after the Left parties withdrew support to the UPA government over the Indo-US nuclear deal,Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently reached out to the Left to secure its support for the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill but drew a negative response yet again.

CPM Politburo member and MP Sitaram Yechury told the Prime Minister that his party was opposed to the Bill. We will oppose the Bill at the very introductory stage. If it is introduced,it must go the Parliamentary Standing Committee, Yechury told The Indian Express on Friday. The Prime Minister had broached the subject to the senior CPM leader recently,emphasising the need for its early passage,which would facilitate nuclear commerce with international power producers.

On Friday,the government circulated the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill and was preparing to introduce it in the Lok Sabha on Monday. Senior government functionaries said on Friday that the Prime Minister was in favour of passing the Bill without referring it to the Parliamentary Standing Committee,which could delay its passage. Ruling party floor managers are conscious of the fact that the Standing Committee on Energy is chaired by Samajwadi Partys Mulayam Singh Yadav.

While the SPs U-turn on the nuclear deal had helped the UPA government win the trust vote in July 2008,the party has since fallen out with the Congress and is unlikely to extend cooperation on the latest Bill,as per the assessment of ruling partys crisis managers. The UPA government would like to introduce the Bill on Monday and have a discussion on it immediately after that so as to ensure its passage before the Prime Ministers visit to Washington for a conference on nuclear security next month. The government had earlier reached out to the BJP by sending National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon to brief Arun Jaitley about the Bill. The Opposition party,however,remains opposed to it.

Meanwhile,a senior government functionary on Friday said India was not opposed to signing the IAEAs Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage CSC. US Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel B Poneman had told The Indian Express in Paris on Tuesday that the US would like other countries,especially India,to sign and ratify the CSC.