By IANS
Thiruvananthapuram : Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) Kerala unit state secretary T.J. Chandrachoodan, a member of the United Progressive Alliance-Left nuclear panel, Tuesday said that India should not go ahead with negotiations with the IAEA on the India-US nuclear deal.
Referring to reports that the Left may give Prime Minister Manmohan Singh the green signal to go ahead with the crucial IAEA negotiations on the nuclear deal, Chandrachoodan said: “I have been getting a lot of calls on this, but let me make it clear that at no cost should this happen because India would stand to lose a huge deal.”
He said that he was taken aback on being called to attend the next meeting of the nuclear panel on Friday.
“The meeting date came up suddenly. Our stand is firm that at no cost should the deal happen. Top Indian scientists like former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Kasturirangan and S. Banerjee have pointed out that Indian scientists are on the threshold of using thorium to produce atomic energy. They say that in seven years we will be self reliant in using thorium, whereas the deal with the US will enable us to increase our nuclear energy from three percent to a mere 10 percent by 2020. We have everything to lose in the deal,” Chandrachoodan told reporters.
He said he had no apprehensions that the two communist parties would change their stand on the nuclear deal, which they have been opposing on the ground that it would compromise the country’s foreign policy.
“The RSP still holds the view that nothing has changed on the stance, and I don’t think the meeting on Nov 16 will give the green signal because it is only through a consensus that this can take place. Our party as well as the Forward Bloc are against the deal, so a green signal does not come,” he said.