New Delhi: Sources in the CPI-M have told CNN-IBN the party has allowed the Government to discuss the Indo-US nuclear with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)—a reversal of its stand that the deal must not be ‘operationalised’.
Sources said the Government will need the Left's approval before signing India-specific safeguards in the nuclear deal—a much softer demand, as before the parties had threatened to bring down the government if it talked with the IAEA.
CNN-IBN Correspondent Smitha Nair reports the Government has been working hard to convince the Left parties that the nuclear deal was important for India’s energy security and it would not compromise India’s sovereignty.
The Left’s permission comes at a time when the CPI-M is cornered over the violence in Nandigram and the murder of graphics designer Rizwanur Rehman in Kolkata. The Central Government has not reacted strongly on the violence in Nandigram, and the permission to speak to the IAEA may be part of a give-and-take arrangement with the CPI-M, says Nair.
The Communist parties will give their permission formally when the Left-UPA committee on the deal meets November 16.
Just yesterday CPM General Secretary Prakash Karat had insisted there was no change in his party’s position that the deal should not be operationalised before the UPA-Left panel on the agreement comes out with its findings.
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