Left to oppose India presence at IAEA meet

Not satisfied with the UPA's replies to their queries on the nuclear issue, the Left parties are likely to ask the government to finalise an India-specific safeguards agreement with International Atomic Energy Agency only after the 123 agreement with the US lapses.

Keeping this in view, the outside supporters of the United Progressive Alliance would pressure the government not to attend the upcoming meeting of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency at Geneva early next month.
    
This was the unanimous view of the four Left parties, which met here on Friday. It would be conveyed to the government at the May 28 meeting of the UPA-Left Committee on the Indo-US nuclear deal, top Left sources said.
    
They said the government's replies on the clarifications sought by them at the Committee's last meeting were not satisfactory and the Left parties would be asking more questions to the Congress-led coalition on the nuclear issue.
    
After the four parties met on Friday, Communist Party India-Marxist Politburo member Sitaram Yechury had a meeting with External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee to discuss the issue.

The Left parties feel that the government should wait for some more time before finalising the India-specific safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency as by then the 123 Agreement with the US would lapse. The Left opposition to the 123 Agreement is because they feel it was bound by the Hyde Act which was detrimental to India's sovereignty and its pursuance of an independent foreign policy.

A safeguards agreement, which would not be bound by the India-US nuclear agreement and lead to its operationalisation, would enable New Delhi to do nuclear trade with countries like Russia, France and other members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the sources said.
   
The smaller Left parties – Revolutionary Socialist Party  and Forward Bloc – feel there was no point in continuing the meetings of the United Progressive Alliance-Left Committee as there was no meeting ground between the two sides. But the Communist Party of India-Marxist and the CPI feel it is necessary to continue discussions for some more time to ensure that the Left's objectives are achieved.
    
The four parties have refused to buy the government's argument that the prevailing shortage of uranium could be met only by signing the nuclear agreement with the US.

"A temporary mismatch between the national uranium supply and demand cannot be the basis to plunge the country into an Indo-US deal with far-reaching adverse implications," CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat has said.
    
Asserting that the Left totally opposed operationalisation of the 123 agreement, the Left leaders have  agreed that there was a shortage of uranium which had led the nuclear plants to run at 50 per cent of their capacity.

But, they said the government should explain why and how this shortage has occurred as the nuclear power programme had been planned with the assumption that there was enough uranium reserves within the country to produce 10,000 MW of power, in comparison with only 4,100 MW being produced currently in the country.
    
"So how is it that much before the Indo-US nuclear deal, the government had a plan of generating 10,000 MW of electricity based on available materials. Then what has led to the current shortage? Is it maladministration or bungling," asked Karat.
    
Other Left leaders did not rule out the possibility of a deliberate act to create the shortage to pressure the Left to allow the government to go ahead with the Indo-US deal. They feel that reports of shortage of uranium were also timed to appear now.

The Left parties are slated to meet again next month to evolve a final position on the issue.