Kolkata, October 19
The UPA government was “about to fall” over the Indo-US nuclear deal, according to veteran CPM leader Jyoti Basu, who said today that the government had now “accepted” the Left’s stand to put on hold the deal.
“There were serious differences on the nuclear deal and the situation had come to such a pass that the UPA government was about to fall.
I have heard they are not going to proceed with it and it is not taking place now. I am happy,” he said here.
“I am happy that the government has accepted the Left’s stand. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi have accepted the Left’s views. We want this government to run another one and a half years because we don’t now want a mid-term election in the country,” Basu said.
Basu’s comments came a day after AICC media department chairman M. Veerappa Moily said the nuclear deal was “alive” and was not “even under oxygen”.
A meeting of the UPA-Left joint mechanism is scheduled for October 22 to discuss the deal.
Moily said the UPA at a meeting had decided to go for the nuclear deal. “There was no subsequent meeting to put it on hold or cancel it,” he said.
As for the controversial deal itself, Manmohan Singh had said yesterday that he had not given up hope and that a way out of the difficulties facing the pact had to be found.
— PTI
