Unable to win over CPM General Secretary Prakash Karat over the breakfast table on Tuesday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called up CPI leader A B Bardhan in the evening to request him to change the Left parties’ stand of opposing the Indo-US nuclear deal.

Since Mr Karat is known for his hardliner image, the UPA leadership is trying to put pressure through other Left leaders including Mr Bardhan, who is known to have a wide acceptance in Congress circles.

Maintaining that the Left parties would not change their stand Mr Bardhan told Deccan Herald that an “extended” meeting of the party Central Secretariat on August 17 and 18 would decide the strategy of the party on the issue in Parliament.

“We are not asking the UPA government to renegotiate, because they will end up doing something worse. We are saying that they should not go any further and operationalise the deal,” he said.

‘Not an epic deal’
“The prime minister may feel that the deal is a great achievement for him and it will go down in history. We don’t think so, our opinion is different,” he said.

Sources said the Left parties, unhappy with the prime minister’s statement daring them to withdraw their support to his government, are unlikely to break off their ties with the UPA but may scale down the level of cooperation with the government.

The CPI has already asked its major partner to review its approach vis-a-vis the UPA government.

Pulling out of the UPA-Left coordination committee is one of the options being considered by the Left, the sources said, pointing out that such a step would not be a blow since they had taken a similar step to protest against disinvestment but had returned.