Karat blames PM's N-deal bid for current crisis

The Communist Party of India-Marxist on Friday squarely blamed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for the prevailing political crisis saying his renewed bid to go to the International Atom ic Energy Agency to seek its approval for the safeguards agreement to operationalise the Indo-US nuclear deal was the main reason.

Observing that the country was "plunged into a political crisis once again", party general secretary Prakash Karat said the cause for this ongoing crisis "lies squarely in the prime minister's renewed bid to go to the IAEA" to get the agreement approved.
    
Karat said the schedule set by the US was "impelling the prime minister to go ahead regardless of the consequences".    

In an article in the forthcoming issue of CPI-M organ People's Democracy, Karat maintained that the urgency to approach the Board of Governors of IAEA "runs contrary" to the understanding arrived at in November 2007 between Congress and the Left leaderships that the government would go to the IAEA for talks but not proceed to get the Board's approval.
    
Karat said the reason for such urgency was "the insistence of the Bush administration that India complete the procedures for the safeguards agreement with the IAEA so that the Americans can take the step of formally initiating the process in the Nuclear Suppliers Group to get the waiver for nuclear trade with India.
   
 "The Bush administration knows very well that there is no time for the 123 Agreement to be passed by the current US Congress," Karat said.             

Karat said by the time the NSG gives the waiver to the nuclear deal "it will be too late for the US Congress to consider and adopt the 123 law."
    
"President Bush wants to ensure in the last few discredited months of his presidency that at least the Indo-US nuclear deal will remain as a legacy to be taken up by the next president. This will have some certainty if the NSG clearance is got before his term expires," he said.
    
"It is this schedule set out by the United States which is impelling the prime minister to go ahead regardless of the consequences," the CPI-M leader said.
    
Karat, who has been holding parleys with the Left, the United National Progressive Alliance, Congress and United Progressive Alliance leaders on the issue, said: "The tactics adopted by the government have been to try and get the Left to agree piecemeal to a step by step operationalisation of the 123 agreement. The Left is being told that once it agrees to go to the Board of Governors, the government won't proceed further. This is similar to the promise made of not going beyond the negotiations with the IAEA Secretariat made in November 2007."
     
Karat said it was "a fact that consultation process in the NSG has already been initiated by the US. In September 2007, the Bush Administration presented a pre-decisional draft titled 'Submission of Civilian Nuclear Cooperation with India' to an informal meeting of the NSG."
    
"It is learnt that a revised note has been submitted subsequently," Karat said, adding that the NSG was awaiting the IAEA clearance to start the procedure. "The way it will go will be that the US would make a request formally for an exemption", he quoted former NSG Chairman Abdul S Minty as saying.

Maintaining that the UPA side was trying to convince the Left that IAEA approval would pave the way for nuclear cooperation with Russia and France, Karat said, "Nothing can be further from truth."
   
In February, Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns had categorically stated that the US would not get the NSG waiver for India in a "worst case scenario of the 123 agreement being bypassed and India trying to engage in nuclear commerce with other countries.
    
"So that 'passport' which is being sought can be nothing but an American passport," Karat said.
    
Observing that the government and the Congress were fully aware that Left would not be party to them trying to push the deal "through a strategic alliance with the US", Karat reiterated that there could be "no compromise" on the issue.
    
Karat observed that the country had been plunged into a crisis when there was a "raging inflation and galloping price rise making the lives of the ordinary people unbearable. The government has abjectly failed to curb price rise."
   
"The country is watching the spectacle of a leadership which is obsessed with its vision of becoming a strategic partner of the US and fulfilling its commitment to an American president who is reviled around the world and has the least credibility within its own country. The government should now be engaged on a war footing to curb inflation, if the priorities of our country and the people are kept in mind," Karat said, adding however the government had exposed its priorities during the last fortnight.
   
Warning that this situation could be exploited by the BJP and other communal forces, Karat said one could only hope that the Congress leadership would realise the serious consequences of pursuing a pro-US line which can only benefit the right-wing communal forces in the country.