N-deal: UPA-Left to meet again on October 5

After two hours of deliberations between the United Progressive Alliance headed by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and the left parties headed by Prakash Karat, it was decided that they would meet again on October 5 to narrow down their differences over the India-United States nuclear deal.

'The second meeting of the UPA-Left committee on the Indo-US civil nuclear cooperation agreement took place today. We had discussions on a number of issues raised in the notes circulated by both sides. The discussions were constructive and will continue at the next meeting of the committee, scheduled to be held at 4 pm on 5th October, 2007,' a joint statement read out by Mukherjee at the end of the meeting said.

The meeting was attended by Communist Party of India-Marxist General Secretary Prakash Karat, his CPI counterpart A B Bardhan, Forward Bloc leader Debabrata Biswas, Union ministers Sharad Pawar, Lalu Yadav, Kapil Sibal and Saifuddin Soz. Finance Minister P Chidambaram, however, was absent.

Asked what he meant by the discussions being constructive, A B Bardhan, general secretary of the Communist Party of India said until the left and the Congress parties come to blows, they have to use the term 'constructive' as a compulsion.