A day after the UPA government clinched the NSG waiver in Vienna, the political battle in India between the Manmohan Singh government and opponents of the deal continues unabated.
NEW DELHI: A day after the UPA government clinched the NSG waiver in Vienna, the political battle in India between the Manmohan Singh government and opponents of the deal continues unabated.
Exemplifying the triumphant mood of the ruling combine, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi drove to the PM’s residence to congratulate him.
CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat signalled the Opposition’s determination to continue its fight by demanding that the next non-Congress government that comes to power at the Centre should cancel the deal.
The party is also going ahead with its plans to march to Rashtrapati Bhawan on Tuesday to demand that parliament meet immediately to discuss the issue.
Having got the crucial NSG waiver, the UPA’s political managers believe that India is now on the home run on the issue and they are going ahead with their plans to “go big on the deal”. The ruling combine’s spinmasters are working overtime on a strategy that will help them sell the deal to the masses.
“The trick is to be able to explain how the deal will benefit the masses. We must get them to relate to it,” says a Cabinet minister.
The issue is also likely to figure prominently at the meeting of the extended Congress Working Committee on September 13.
The CPI(M) meanwhile has vowed to continue battling against the agreement and has termed the waiver by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) as abject surrender by the government. In a statement issued at the end of its two-day politburo meeting on Sunday, the party said: “The NSG waiver is neither clean nor unconditional. As in the case of the 123 Agreement and the IAEA Safeguards Agreement, the waiver by the NSG, organised by the United States, will bind India to all the conditions set out in the Hyde Act. All these steps have gone against the prime minister’s assurances to parliament in August 2006.”
Referring to the voluntary moratorium on testing, the CPI(M) said it had now become part of a multilateral commitment. “India has become part of the non-proliferation regime which it always held to be discriminatory”.
The politburo said the CPI(M) will rally all the democratic and patriotic forces to fight back this strategic alliance with the United States and the “surrender the nuclear deal entails”.
j_ansari@dnaindia.net
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}