The UPA-Left politics of partnership is rapidly making way for politics of confrontation over the Indo-US nuclear deal. The CPM has upped the ante, asking Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to make a choice between retaining the Left’s lifeline support for his Government or the nuclear deal with the US. In essence, the situation has gone beyond a mere end to the UPA-Left honeymoon; their marriage itself would rock unless the Prime Minister signalled an end to his Government’s nuclear alliance with the US. The situation is rather amusing. If the Left parties are so fundamentally concerned about the deal, how did they choose to happily honeymoon with the UPA Government for the past two years when the deal was being very actively negotiated with the US? It has also never been a secret that the deal is but part of a larger framework – the so-called Next Steps in Strategic Partnership (NSSP) – of expanding Indo-US ties.

But suddenly the Left parties seem to have woken up. With their dictate to the UPA, they have at once, triggered a double crisis for the UPA Government – one on the domestic political front and the other on the key foreign policy front. The Government would only emerge weaker from this crisis even though the Left has not specifically said it would withdraw support in the event of the Government going ahead with the deal. Certainly, the UPA Government would virtually get reduced to being a lame duck one.

However, should the UPA opt for affecting a truce with the Left, a possibility that cannot be ruled out since none of the major political parties including the CPM is in a position to face a mid-term Lok Sabha election now, then the nuclear deal will be a virtual casualty. The Left parties would very much like the Government to abandon the deal. But it would be tough for the Prime Minister to forsake a deal and continue in the saddle. By no means, the deal is a very satisfactory one and probably the Prime Minister could have been more candid about this. But the fact is that between this deal and an alternative of having “no deal at all,” it is better that the country settles for what it has achieved as the beginning of a long journey to becoming an equal partner in the global nuclear trade. The Government has no choice but to at least ensure this as it deals with the present crisis.