CPI floats new formula to end N-rift within UPA

New Delhi: A fresh effort to resolve the ongoing stand-off between the Left and the UPA over the Indo-US civil nuclear deal began on Monday evening with senior Congress leaders holding talks with their CPI counterparts.

The CPI leaders, however, have adopted an aggressive posture, saying the government must set up a 'political mechanism' to evaluate the Hyde Act and remove Left concerns and doubts.

"We harbour no opposition to the evolving of a political mechanism to break the impasse. But the government should refrain from operationalising the 123 Agreement," CPI General Secretary A B Bardhan said after the one-and-a-half hour meeting with government interlocutor Pranab Mukherjee.

Bardhan was accompanied by party senior leaders Gurudas Dasgupta and D Raja in the meeting. The Left leaders said a 'political mechanism' is a must, as the experts' panel was not going to solve the problem.

The CPI leader said the technical experts and the diplomats could drop in occasionally. Bardhan said they reminded Mukherjee that all the four Left parties in their August 20 meeting had also asserted that they were not opposed to the setting up of a committee or mechanism to evaluate the Hyde Act but only after the government decided not to take the next step.

"We have told Mr Mukherjee the same thing, that the Left parties at that very meeting had made it categorically clear that the government should not proceed further with the next step of negotiations for the safeguards agreement with the IAEA," he said.

Defence Minister AK Antony and Ahmed Patel, Political Secretary to Congress President Sonia Gandhi were also present at the parleys, in which the ambit of the mechanism was also discussed.

The government will also hold talks with leaders of the CPI-M, Forward Bloc and RSP.

Mr Bardhan hoped that the final announcement would be made after the government finalises talks with all the Left parties.

The parleys are almost certain to lead to the setting up of a political mechanism to evaluate the Hyde Act and its implications on India.

The mechanism will avail the services of the technical and diplomatic experts to be announced by UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the Congress core group brief her about the Left viewpoint, sources said.

(With inputs from UNI)