Click to play videoNew Delhi: The UPA-Left leaders may be beaming after the meeting on the Indo-US nuclear deal earlier this week, but looks are deceptive and the smiles certainly don’t tell the full story.
CNN-IBN has access to what happened behind closed doors on October 9 at the nuclear panel that got the Government to do a complete U-turn on the deal. Sources say the meeting was acrimonious, with the Left making a dramatic threat to the UPA leadership if the nuclear deal went through. During the meeting, a Left leader is reported to have said, “If you go ahead with the nuclear deal, we will immediately go to the President, ask for a confidence motion in Parliament and vote with the NDA to bring down the Government.”
That the Left was willing to go along with the BJP-led NDA indicates the extent of the divide on the nuclear issue.
There's more.
At the same meeting, Left leaders openly targeted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Among the accusations were the following:
- Why has the Prime Minister not visited any major Muslim country?
- Why did the Government not side with Iran during the debate on its nuclear programme?
- Why did the Government not condemn the hanging of Saddam Hussein?
When it was mentioned that the Prime Minister had visited Afghanistan and Bangladesh, the reply was, “These are SAARC countries, please tell us why has Prime Minister stayed away from major Muslim countries.”
Ironically, no UPA ally present at the meeting stood up for the Prime Minister - neither Sharad Pawar nor Lalu Prasad or the DMK.
Pawar and Yadav reportedly said in chorus, “The nuclear deal is not that big that it should allow a Government to fall and elections to be forced upon us.”
Worryingly, the convener of the group, Foreign Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, also reportedly did not strongly defend Manmohan Singh's track record. Mukherjee wants to retain his position as the UPA No. 1 coalition manager.
The Prime Minister, top Government sources say, is feeling down if not out and feels let down by his friends and allies. While the deal may go into deep freeze, it’s the Prime Minister who may well be finding himself at the crossroads - a victim of a political system that is unable to look beyond short term gains.
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