By IANS
Agartala : The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government would face consequences if it went ahead with the contentious India-US nuclear deal, Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) politburo member Sitaram Yechury said here Tuesday.
“We do not want to destabilise the government. If the UPA wants to go ahead with the proposed deal, the Congress-led government would face the consequences,” Yechury told journalists.
“Without the support of the Left parties, no government at the centre can function,” he added.
His remarks came ahead of next Monday’s meeting of a 15-member UPA-Left committee, headed by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, that will discuss the outcome of the deliberations with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on the India-specific safeguards agreement, necessary to make the nuclear deal operational.
The Marxist leader was here to address a victory rally of the Left Front, which assumed office Monday after a resounding victory in the Feb 23 elections.
He said: “The Left parties are seriously contemplating a third alternative with non-Congress and non-BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) parties and formation of the third alternative front would be discussed in the CPI-M party congress scheduled to start in Tamil Nadu later this month.”
He said the ‘third alternative’ was different from a ‘third front’ and would be based on three common policies – secularism, pro-people economic policies and independent foreign policy.
“We have been trying to form the third alternative since our 16th party Congress held in Kolkata in 1998 and some of the partners of UPA and the United
National Progressive Alliance (UNPA) like to join the proposed third alternative front,” Yechury said without naming those parties.
The Marxist leader said the next party Congress would also formulate strategies to bring more and more people under the banner of the Left parties after addressing both economic and social issues.
“Caste barriers and the poor literacy rate are among other factors that are an obstacle for expansion of the Left parties in many parts of India.”
About separate Telengana state by bifurcating Andhra Pradesh, the CPI-M leader said the Left parties want the creation of the new state on the basis of linguistic criteria and also to give priority to develop backward areas.
Referring to the Left parties’ win in Tripura, Yechury said: “Such landslide victories would help the communists build a new India.”