The UPA-Left meeting scheduled for Friday will see the Left question the Manmohan Singh government’s “pro-American” stance that they claim has gone an up in the last three years.

The talks, following two earlier rounds, will be used by the Left to voice its concerns regarding the government’s foreign and strategic policies, according to signals received by the Congress.
Highly-placed Congress sources said that the Left in a political note sent to the government, had raised several questions regarding the policies in these two sectors.

Convincing the left
Minister of State in PMO, Prithviraj Chavan, said the meeting would be utilised by the UPA to try and convince the Left about how the nuclear deal was important to meet the country’s energy needs.

“It is a very important deal and we will try to convince our Left partners about it as far as meeting the country’s energy requirements are concerned,” he said. Asked whether there would be another meeting between the UPA and the Left on October 14, as has been indicated by Left leaders, he said while no such meeting had been fixed as yet, it could be decided to have another round at Friday’s meeting.

It is believed that in the note to the government, the Left parties would charge the former with deviating from the National CMP and demand a “status report” on the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project.