By IRNA
New Delhi : The Left parties on Wednesday came down heavily on the Bush Administration for setting the May deadline for operationalizing the Indo-US nuclear deal, saying Washington was indulging in ‘pressure tactics and intimidation’.
Reacting to the statement of three US senators earlier in the day asking India to send the civilian nuclear agreement to the US Congress by May for ratification or be prepared to renegotiate it with a new Administration, the Left leaders said the government must not do anything in a hurry and respect the sense of Parliament, which was against the operationalization of the accord, UNI reported here.
CPI (M) General Secretary Prakash Karat said the Americans had no business to pressurize India on the issue since the deal was being debated in this country.
“We will resolve the issue according to our timetable and not succumb to the dictates of the US,” he said.
Karat said the deal would be discussed threadbare at the CPI(M) Congress in Coimbatore next month.
CPI National Secretary D Raja said senior US officials like Condoleezza Rice and Nicholas Burns had all along been asking India to take steps to operationalize the deal, primarily because it would benefit the US companies.
“The deal would open up the Indian market to the US nuclear companies, which we can’t allow,” he said.
“We are not a banana republic that we should succumb to pressure from any quarter. We are an upcoming sovereign political and economic power…why should we surrender to anyone’s dictates,” Raja added.
Meanwhile, in view of the deadline set by the United States for India to clear the nuclear deal, the Congress today said the UPA Government would do what was in the best interest of the country and in consultation with its allies.
“The nuclear deal is very good for the country and will open up a bright future (for us)… Our agenda is determined by what is best for the country and in consultation with the allies,” Congress spokesperson Jayanti Natarajan told reporters.
Asked whether that would mean the views of the allies, particularly the Left parties which were strongly opposed to the deal, would prevail, she said a coordination panel had been set up where the issue was being discussed.
Senior BJP leader and former union minister Murli Manohar Joshi lambasted the UPA government for their arguments of ensuring energy security of the country through the Indo-US nuclear deal.
Talking to UNI in Agartala, Dr Joshi said, “This deal can secure 10 percent of India’s energy demand after at least ten years.” Dr Joshi said if the nuclear deal is struck under the framework of existing bilateral understanding, India would be forced to cede its territorial sovereignty and completely surrender its space achievements to the US with totally delinked energy security from the deal.
“Once this deal is concluded we are bound by it and constrained in making nuclear weapons. Pakistan, a rogue state, is not (constrained) since it has not concluded the treaty, nor Israel, neither North Korea,” Dr Joshi pointed out.
He said that a group of retired senior scientists from the Department of Atomic Energy, which was instrumental in the development of nuclear technology in India, had recently voiced apprehension that the modifications made by the US Congress to the Bush-Singh agreement would infringe on India’s ‘independence in carrying out R&D in nuclear science and technology’ and also put restraints on India’s ‘nuclear option as a strategic requirement’.
Earlier in the day, three US senators — Joseph R Biden (Democrat) who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, John Kerry (Democrat) and Chuck Hagel (Republican) — met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and said if the agreement was not ratified by July, the next US Government would re-negotiate the terms and conditions.