The Communist Party of India Marxist will review its decision to support the United Progressive Alliance only if the Manmohan Singh-led government operationalised the India-United States nuclear deal, Central Committee member Nilotpal Basu said in Kolkata on Monday.
"We don't want the government to operationalise the deal. If they do so, we will decide our course of action," said Basu when asked whether there was a possibility of withdrawal of support to the Centre.
He said the UPA government had said it would not take a view until the UPA-Left joint mechanism gave its recommendations. "We hope the mechanism will arrive at some result," said Basu.
The CPI(M) also sought to downplay the apparent differences between the party's Bengal leaders and General Secretary Prakash Karat. Central Committee member Mohammad Selim said CPI(M) patriarch Jyoti Basu and West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's support for nuclear power should not be construed as support for the nuclear deal.
Basu said, "Our party is not against nuclear power per se. We just want to stress that nuclear power constitutes only a small component of our energy security". Selim added that there have been a lot of misinterpretations of the issue by the media since they did not understand the party fully.