As the Left remained adamant on its stand on the 123 Agreement, Congress on Monday sent a terse signal to it: first participate in the debate on the issue in Parliament and get all the apprehensions addressed before taking any decision.
The ruling party, responding indirectly to the Left demand that the negotiations be put on hold, stuck to its earlier position that such a measure would not be possible, though it appeared ready to give some concessions to its outside allies’ apparent “US phobia”.
The Congress indicated that while it would not stop from going ahead with the negotiations, it could consider reducing the level of the forthcoming joint Indo-US defence exercises as a concession to the Left.
At the same time, highly-placed Congress sources hinted that as a means of last-minute resort to take on the Left if it comes to that, the party was preparing to counter its questioning of the UPA government’s commitment to the country’s sovereignty by digging out records of how the Left had hailed the “Red bomb” exploded by China in the 1960s and how it had criticised when India had carried out its first test in 1974.
While the party has already tasked External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee to soften up the Left on the issue, it used the services of another party leader and Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal to send the message to the Left that all their concerns should be raised during the debate in Parliament, and that they should not be hasty in taking any decision on the issue before that.
Mr Sibal, who pointedly said it was CPM general secretary Prakash Karat who seemed to have taken a “decision” even before the Parliament debate, added with a dash of dry humour: “We listen to them (Left) with rapt attention, and I think they will listen to us with equal attention”.
Saying aloud what the Congress circles have been informally commenting all these days, he said the Left’s objections were more about the general strategic relationship between India and the US rather than the 123 agreement itself.
