New Delhi, September 18
On the eve of the meeting of the UPA-Left committee on the Indo-US nuclear deal, the Communists and the Manmohan Singh government engaged in shadow boxing with the CPM general secretary Prakash Karat setting a time frame of six months for the government to hold the deal and union minister Kapil Sibal asserting that “no government worth its salt can afford to renege on an international treaty”.
“Do not operationalise the deal for at least six months. The government should wait for the outcome of a discussion in Parliament before taking any decision on this matter,” Karat said, serving a fresh warning to the government against implementing the controversial deal.
In Bangalore, Sibal, the science and technology minister upped the ante saying the bilateral deal was a solemn agreement entered into by the governments of India and the US and the UPA government was equally committed to the agreement as well as to addressing the concerns of the Left parties.
He said no political consensus had ever been sought before signing an international treaty but the deal had been discussed in Parliament frequently at every stage.
“We still hope that the government ... will not come under US pressure and not go ahead with the agreement,” Karat told a rally called to protest against the civilian nuclear cooperation agreement.
“All we say is that wait for six months,” he said. “In six months, in the next Parliament session, there can be debate on this ... listen to all opposition and try and get a solution. Otherwise there will be a political crisis in the country, we don’t want this crisis,” he warned. To a question whether the government
would stick to the deal despite opposition to it from its partners, Sibal said, “We want to run the government full term...It depends on them.”
Despite the Left’s stiff opposition to the deal, Sibal said the government was confident about convincing them.
“They (Left) are reasonable men,” he said, alluding to efforts to convince the Left that the deal was necessary to meet the country’s rising energy needs.
The Left parties have already submitted a note containing their apprehensions over the nuclear deal and the Hyde Act, to which the government has responded. These notes would come up for discussion tomorrow.
Karat asked the government to choose between “any promise made to (George) Bush or to listen to the majority in Parliament.”
The CPM leader said, “The government need to know that the majority in Parliament is against the deal.” He warned the government that it would move towards a “political crisis” if it chose to ignore the “majority will” of the people.
The Marxist party chief observed that the deal would only benefit American multinational companies.
“The government merely says the country needs power and the nuclear deal will help us improve the power scenario in the country. The truth is that the power produced would cost us double. The Enron experience would be repeated,” he said.
According to Sibal, the deal was better than the one the US signed with China and Japan as it provided India the advantage of reprocessing nuclear fuel and included a clause for a one-year notice period before scrapping it. China did not enjoy a similar benefit, he said.
Moreover, India had been allowed to enter the deal without giving up its nuclear programme and without signing the NPT. “What opposition could anyone have to such a historic opportunity?” he said while pointing out that such an exemption had been made only for India.
Sibal said the deal was imperative for India because the country has very limited fuel reserves and the imported fuels will help in meeting its requirements, which are predicted to be in the range of 800,000 to one million MW by 2030. Thermal and hydro energy options, as an alternative, had a socio-economic impact tagged to them and there were also huge transmission losses in hydropower.
The deal did not violate the Common Minimum Programme as is being alleged, he said, adding the deal was imperative for India because the country has very limited fuel reserves.
Sibal said the nuclear deal would not affect the multi-billion dollar Iran gas pipeline project, as the two were not connected. The two were not connected and the government was in favour of the Iran gas pipeline project. “Who said we are giving up on the deal. We are supporting the deal with Iran,” he said.
