Veteran Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Jyoti Basu on Friday claimed that the Centre has put the Indo-US civil nuclear deal on hold.
"There were serious differences on the nuclear deal and the situation had come to such a pass that the United Progressive Alliance government was about to fall. I have heard they are not going to proceed with it and it is not taking place now. I am happy," Basu said in Kolkata.
"I am happy that the government has accepted the Left stand. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi have accepted the Left views. We want this government to run another one and half years because we don't now want a mid-term election in the country," he said.
Basu's comment came a day after All India Congress Committee Media Department chairman M Veerappa Moily said on Thursday that the Indo-US nuclear deal was "alive" and was not "even under oxygen".
A meeting of the UPA-Left joint mechanism was scheduled for October 22 to discuss the deal.
Moily said the UPA, at a meeting, had decided to go for the nuclear deal. "There was no subsequent meeting to put it on hold or cancel it," he said.
As far as the controversial deal itself, Dr Singh had said on Thursday he had not given up hope and that a way out of the difficulties facing the pact had to be found.