By IANS
New Delhi : A meeting between Left leaders and the government is expected to take place next week to find ways to bring their strained ties over the Indo-US civil nuclear deal back on track.
Left sources Saturday, however, declined to reveal who in the government would be involved in the talks with them.
The meeting may discuss the developments at the Congress core committee meeting, which was held Friday night, presided over by party president ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was also part of the core group, which met almost immediately after Gandhi’s return from South Africa, said Congress sources.
Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) politburo member Sitaram Yechury had earlier met the prime minister and briefed him on his party’s central committee resolution endorsing the politburo’s stand on the nuclear issue.
Yechury has been holding talks with the government on behalf of the Left.
In order to keep other communist leaders well informed and take them into confidence, CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat went to Ajoy Bhawan, the headquarters of the Communist Party of India (CPI), Saturday afternoon and held a one-on-one session with party general secretary A.B. Bardhan.
This is the first meeting between the two top Left leaders after the CPI-M central committee meeting.
While none said what had transpired in the meeting between Bardhan and Karat, the CPI-M general secretary is believed to have briefed his CPI counterpart on the decisions of the central committee and also Yechury’s meeting with the prime minister. The Congress core group is also believed to have come up for a mention during the meeting.
It may be recalled that Bardhan is the only Left leader who has virtually threatened to withdraw support to the government saying, “governments come and governments go, but the country is above all governments”.
However, Sonia Gandhi’s early return from her South Africa tour seems to have brought down the Left pitch on the issue, which was clearly developing into a confrontation with the government.
Yechury’s meeting with the prime minister before the meeting of the Congress core group is also understood to have discussed ways to ease the standoff between the Left and the UPA over the nuclear deal.