Left Front welcomes PM, Sonia's remarks on N-deal

The Left Front on Friday welcomed the statements of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and United Progress Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi about the nuclear deal, saying the government was committed to considering the findings of the joint mechanism set up to allay their concerns on the issue.

"The government will proceed on the deal only after the committee formed to give an opinion on the ramifications of the deal gives its opinion. On the basis of the written agreement between the Left and the government, we will deliberate on October 22," Communist Party of India-Marxist politburo member Sitaram Yechury said in New Delhi on Friday.

Communist Party of India General Secretary A B Bardhan said that the deal has never been the 'end-all' of the government, as propagated all these days.

"I have always been saying that why do you want to sacrifice your own government on the altar of this nuclear deal," he said, adding that perhaps 'sobriety' has returned.

CPI leader D Raja said, "It is good that they see a point now about what the Left has been saying on the deal. It is a positive development; they will give consideration to the concerns expressed by the Left in national interest."

Earlier in the day, Singh had said that the failure to carry the deal through would not be the end of life and Gandhi had said that the Left parties, which were opposing the deal, were not being unreasonable.

Lashing out at the Bharatiya Janata Party, Raja said that had the saffron party been in power, "they would have done worse things. It was the BJP government which had started the strategic partnership with the US.

"They had also amended the Electricity Act to allow Enron during their 13 days in government, making the country weak and vulnerable to dependence on foreign countries for energy needs. What BJP is doing now is sheer hypocrisy and duplicity," Raja said.

Welcoming the statements, Forward Bloc General Secretary Debabrata Biswas said, "We have been consistently saying that the agreement is not beneficial for the country. The government must stick to the Common Minimum Programme."

He also maintained that the Left had never said they will pull down the government on this count.