It’s UPA versus the rest in the house

NEW DELHI: The UPA stood alone in Parliament on Monday to applaud Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the nuclear deal.

For once, the government didn’t have the safety of numbers as its Left partners joined the BJP and the UNPA in a protest walkout over the PM’s much-awaited statement.

In the Lok Sabha, the PM faced the ignominy of being drowned out by sloganeering from UNPA MPs who kept up a constant chant through his 30-minute speech. The Left parties were the first to walk out, just before the PM wound up. The others followed a little later. But in the Rajya Sabha, all of them left as soon as the PM began speaking.  

This provoked him to stop abruptly. He simply laid his speech on the table of the House, asked that it be taken as read and left.

With the standoff between the government and the other political parties, including the Left, spilling over in Parliament, speculation was rife whether this reflected the shape of things to come. The standing ovation from the Congress and its UPA allies only served to underline the government’s isolation on the nuclear issue.

The PM’s eight-page statement was a mix of emotion and hard facts. Maintaining that he had redeemed the pledge he made to Parliament last year on the nuclear deal, he declared, ``We have achieved an agreement that is good for India, and good for the world. I will let history judge.

This agreement with the US will open new doors in capitals across the world. It is another step in our journey to regain our due place in global councils. When future generations look back, they will come to acknowledge the significance of this historic deal.’’

These were brave words from a man who has already made a place for himself in history as the father of India’s economic reform programme. Clearly, he’s hoping that he will also go down as the man who put India in the league of global powers.

Addressing his Left partners, the PM pointed out that his government had kept Parliament fully briefed through the various stages of negotiations with the US. ``Our government has adhered scrupulously to Parliamentary practices and traditions. We have in fact gone far beyond any previous government,’’ he insisted.

This, in fact, is the chief cause of his anguish with the Left. A PMO source recalled that when the nuclear deal was discussed in Parliament in the last monsoon session, Left MPs had made a commitment that they would support the agreement provided it addressed nine issues.

The source said the Left has shifted the goalposts by now opposing the deal on ideological grounds.