By IANS
New Delhi : The government Saturday began informal consultations to persuade the Left parties to tone down their opposition to the India-US civil nuclear deal, minutes after the Left allies warned it of “serious consequences” if it went ahead with the next steps to operationalise the deal.
External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee met Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon and discussed with him the finer details of the 123 civil nuclear cooperation bilateral pact to buffer the government against critics of the deal.
Although the Congress party will hold a special meeting later in the evening to discuss a strategy to placate the Left allies and find a way out to break the Left-UPA standoff, Congress party spokesperson Abhishek Manu Sanghvi said that national interests would not be compromised by the nuclear deal.
“We understand concerns of all parties. We will discuss the Left’s concerns and take a decision in national interest,” he said.
The government discussed the nuclear deal with the Left parties many times in the past, he said.
Addressing journalists after meeting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi, the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) general secretary Prakash Karat said he and his colleague Sitaram Yechury had conveyed to them the Left’s strong reservations over the nuclear deal.
“It is for the Congress leadership to decide on the matter which will have serious consequences for the government and the country,” Karat said.
“I wish to stress that the Left parties are firmly united on the stand that this agreement should not go forward, he said.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) also upped the ante over the nuclear deal saying it would press for a vote in parliament over the nuclear deal. “This is not in the interests of the country. We have expressed concerns about the Hyde Act from day one,” senior BJP leader V.K. Malhotra said.
When asked whether the BJP would join the Left in pressuring the government to not proceed with the nuclear pact, he said: “We have been opposing the deal from day one. The Left parties were the ones who were not coming forward to oppose the deal.”