New Delhi, August 26
The Left and the UPA government will resume dialogue on the current stand-off over the nuclear deal tomorrow in a bid to resolve the crisis touched off by Left threat of serious consequences if the agreement with the US is operationalised.
External affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee will meet Left leaders tomorrow ahead of a possible meeting between them and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi to find common ground over their objections on the deal. CPI national secretary D. Raja met Mukherjee today and was told that dialogue would resume tomorrow.
The core group of the Congress had earlier this week met here soon after party chief Sonia Gandhi’s return from a tour of South Africa and decided to hold talks with Left leaders to find a way out.
CPM leader Sitaram Yechury had also briefed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on his party’s position that it did not want the current crisis to affect the government, though it was “contingent upon the government not proceeding further with the agreement”.
The meeting will come in the wake of a less strident posture adopted by the Left against the government on the matter as they said there would be no crisis for the government if it allayed apprehensions expressed on the draft 123 agreement in the context of the Henry Hyde Act.
— TNS, PTI
