By Manish Chand, IANS
New Delhi : Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government appears determined to go ahead with steps to conclude the civil nuclear deal with the US, thereby setting the stage for a possible showdown with its Communist allies that may lead to a general election next year.
A team of officials from the Department of Atomic Energy is already in Vienna to negotiate the proposed safeguards pact with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that will be unique to India and acknowledge the separation of the country’s civilian and military nuclear programme.
Undeterred by the Left’s fresh threat that it will not allow the India-US civilian nuclear deal to be operationalised, the government plans to conclude an India-specific safeguards pact with the UN atomic energy watchdog by the end of this month, highly placed sources said.
After concluding the draft safeguards pact, the government will put it up for the Left’s scrutiny as per an understanding with its Communist allies at a joint Left-UPA meeting last month.
Despite renewed warning by Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Prakash Karat that the Left will not let the government to go ahead with the deal after the IAEA talks, the government is hoping that the Left will come around at the last minute to back the pact.
“We are confident of concluding the safeguards pact with the IAEA by the end of the month,” a top official privy to nuclear negotiations told IANS.
“We are also hopeful that the Left will eventually see the light and back the deal. Anyway, let’s us first conclude the pact. We will resolve these issues at the next UPA-Left meeting,” added the source who spoke only on condition of anonymity.
But this talk of pushing the deal in the face of the Left’s implacable opposition conceals the mood of resignation on one hand and resoluteness on the other as far as the nuclear deal is concerned.
Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma denied any deal between the government and the Left before the Gujarat assembly elections, as implied by Karat’s remarks Sunday, in allowing it to go to IAEA.
Sharma stressed that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chief Sonia Gandhi were unlikely to make any compromise and take any decision based on political expediency.
“The Congress and UPA feel that supreme national interests can only be served by India ending its long years of nuclear apartheid and reintegrate globally on the issue,” he told reporters in Shimla.
Karat is said to have told a party meeting here Sunday that the Left would ask the government not to go ahead with the deal after its talks with the IAEA. “If they go ahead, we will have to be prepared for mid-term polls.”
Karat’s remarks at a meeting of the state unit of the CPI-M Sunday were clear indication, if any more was needed, that the Left had given the government just a face-saver and nothing more when it relented on IAEA negotiations last month.
Subsequently, sources in the CPM denied Karat delivering any ultimatum, saying his remarks were meant primarily for party cadres.
For the first time, Karat spelt out a precise deadline for the government against proceeding further on the nuclear deal.
“When they (officials) come back from talks with IAEA, we will tell them (government) there is no need (to go ahead with the deal). The issue must be resolved by the end of December,” he declared.
According to the July 18, 2005 India-US nuclear understanding, New Delhi will place 14 of its civilian nuclear reactors under international safeguards – while keeping the military programme out of its purview – in return for the resumption of global nuclear cooperation.
The IAEA pact is expected to incorporate fuel supply guarantee, India’s right to build a strategic fuel reserve for the lifetime of its safeguarded nuclear reactors and the right to reprocess spent fuel under a specially-built facility which will be placed under safeguards.
Domestic political calculations appear to have influenced the Left in granting the belated concession to the government last month to go ahead with the IAEA negotiations last month. The Communists, under political fire over the alleged capture of Nandigram by armed party cadres in West Bengal, appeared to have softened towards the deal under pressure.
But subsequently the debate in parliament last week brought to the fore the Left’s visceral opposition to the deal, with Communist MPs, including Sitaram Yechury, staging a walkout at the end of the debate.
“We are not fully convinced,” said Yechury with an air of finality, which poured cold water on whatever hopes the government had of operationalising the deal.