He was addressing a convention here on the Indo-US nuclear deal and its implications for democracy and sovereignty.

Wrong choices
Advising the prime minister against choosing wrong allies and friends like the US, Karat found everything wrong with the former’s remarks describing President George W Bush as the “greatest friend of India.”

He called it a “supreme irony” that the “most hated president” in the US was the “greatest benefactor” of this government.

Continuing in the same vein, he said, “Australian Prime Minister John Howard is going and everybody knows about Pakistan and the condition of Bush’s favourite ally Pervez Musharraf. We don’t want our prime minister to find himself in the same category.”

National interest
He said, it was not in the interest of either India or the prime minister to go ahead with the nuclear deal with the US.

He reiterated that if the government went ahead with sealing the deal, the Left parties would not be there to help. Referring to the political crisis triggered by the Left rejection of the deal, Karat said, “The basic problem is the fact that the rulers of our country have accepted US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s offer to help India become a major power in the world.”

The Left parties have finalised their joint note, containing their main objections on the Hyde Act and 123 Agreement.

The note has been prepared after consultations with former director of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre A N Prasad, former chairman of Atomic Energy Regulatory Board A Gopalakrishnan and former scientist with Nuclear Fuels Complex, A B Damodaran. It would be submitted to the UPA members of the UPA-Left committee on the nuclear deal on Friday.

At the first meeting of the panel earlier this week, its members were asked to send their response by September 17. After this, the two parties will meet again on September 19.