Softening its stand further, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Friday said it saw no crisis for the United Progressive Alliance government over the Indo-US nuclear deal and made it clear that it was only pressing the 'pause' button and not the 'stop' button.
"I don't see a crisis. Where was it and where has it gone," CP1(M)'s politburo member Sitaram Yechury told reporters replying to a volley of questions on whether the crisis for the Manmohan Singh government on the deal issue was over. At the same time, he stuck to his party's stand that the government should not proceed with operationalising the deal as it was not in the national interest and demanded a structured debate in Parliament.
He said that there could be talks between the Left and the Congress once UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi returned from South Africa and her party deliberates on the response to the Central Committee resolution on the matter.
Yechury, who is also the CPI(M)'s Parliamentary party leader, insisted that the Left wanted other important issues like price rise, legislation for workers in unorganised sector and implementation of the recommendations of the Srikrishna Commission and the Sachar Committee to be debated in Parliament along with the nuclear issue.
"We don't want the nuclear issue to hijack other important issues," he said. His comments came a day after party general secretary Prakash Karat's assertion that the party did not want the current crisis over the deal to affect the government.