Kolkata, September 29
On the first of its three-day meeting today, the CPM central committee had been apprised about the discussions and decisions of the yesterday’s Politburo meeting, which the central committee endorsed unanimously.

According to party sources, the CPM will now wait if any solution can be found after their meeting with the Prime Minister and the external affairs minister on October 5 and subsequently, another meeting of the specially constituted panel at the request of the Left parties.

Talking to the mediapersons after today’s meeting, Jyoti Basu said external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee called him from New York two days ago requesting him not to take any firm steps hastily. “But l told him categorically that we would not make any compromise on the nuclear deal. Let’s see what they say now,” Basu said.

Basu said they all agreed that in no case they would sacrifice the country’s national interests. But they were against the withdrawal of support from the government at this stage. “However, our future step will depend on what stand the UPA now takes, Basu added.

At today’s meeting, the members heard party general secretary Prakash Karat and other leaders on the present political situation vis-à-vis the functioning of the Manmohan Singh government.

In the remaining two days of the meeting, the central committee will discuss about the party’s strength and weakness and its past experiences in supporting the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre and running the state governments in West Bengal, Tripura and Kerala.

Accordingly, the committee will decide their future political agenda. The meeting will also draft the political and economic resolutions to be placed at the forthcoming party congress at Coimbatore in November.

Of the total 84 central committee members, over 60 were present at today’s meeting. Ailing senior leader Samar Mukherjee attended meeting as a special invitee.

Meanwhile, Prakash Karat briefed members about their discussions and deliberations at yesterday’s Politburo meeting. He explained why it was necessary that they now needed to re-think on their support to the Manmohan Singh government.

He cited several examples that their stand and decisions had been flouted by the UPA government, ignoring the Common Minimum Programme on which the Left parties agreed to support the Congress-led government from outside.

But the situation had now changed and the government was now taking all anti-people steps on their own and the liabilities and criticism were lying on them.

Karat said he too was not in favour of pulling out their support from the government and inviting a snap poll. But that does not mean they would be a party to the selling of the country to the Bush administration.