Maintaining that the UPA government should take “sense of the House” into account and scrap the Indo-US nuclear deal, the Left parties have said they would raise the demand at the next UPA-Left committee meeting.
Insisting that majority of the lawmakers were against the Indo-US deal, CPI general secretary A B Bardhan on Friday asked the government to consider the walkout by the Members of Parliament as the “sense of the House” and not to proceed with the operationalisation of the deal.
In an interview with a newsmagazine, CPM general secretary Prakash Karat said the nuclear debate in Parliament had clearly established that a majority of the MPs were opposed to the 123 Agreement in some way or the other.
“It will be better for the government to not to proceed with the deal,” he said.
Reiterating his threat to the UPA government, the Marxist leader said, “If this is the issue the UPA want to break up with us on, all political parties need to be prepared for elections any time.”
While Bardhan refused to comment on the threat issued by his CPM colleague, he clearly pointed out that the Left parties did not want the deal. “We do not want the deal. We do not want the deal to be operationalised... There is no doubt about it. Arithmetically, the sense of House (Parliament) is that the majority of the members are opposed to the deal.”
“That being so, the honourable way for the government is to take into account this sense of House. We will emphasise in the seventh (next) meeting of the UPA-Left that this should be taken into account,” he said.