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New Delhi: Indian Leftists have said they have no plans for pulling down the incumbent coalition government over the contentious Indo-US nuclear deal.
According to the Communist Party of India general secretary A.B. Bardhan, the Left Front that provides the crucial outside support to the Congress party-led United Progressive Alliance government has no proposal before it to withdraw its support.
The clarification of the senior Left Front leader has come amid suggestions that the UPA government was considering early polls to break the logjam over the nuclear deal in view of the constant threats of the Left to withdraw its support if the government went ahead with the deal.
"Even they [UPA leaders] have given up the talk of preparing the elections," Bardhan said. Interestingly, CPI general secretary agreed that India required nuclear energy to meet its growing electricity demands and clarified that their opposition to the nuclear deal was not ideological.
"We are opposed to the deal for very solid patriotic reasons. The deal will be derogatory to our supreme national interest," he told a group of journalists during his visit to a news agency.
Curiously, Bardhan made no effort to hide his disliking for the US and support for the Chinese, making it amply clear that ideology has some role to play in their opposition. He went on to give a sermon to the government to desist from expanding partnership with the US in the field of defence and adding that there will be peace in the world if India and China came closer.
Bardhan, however, came out in support of the government over its Tibetan policy saying the Left parties were in full agreement with the Indian government's stand that Tibet was a part of China.
"We [Left parties] follow the 'One China Policy' under which Taiwan is also a part of China. Just as we don't like anyone to interfere in our internal affairs, the Chinese also don't want interference by anyone in their internal affairs," the CPI leader said.
Bardhan termed the experience of supporting the UPA government as not a very happy one. "I cannot say it is a failed experiment but it is not a very happy experiment either," he said, adding that while the ruling coalition used to pay heed to the Left views initially, they started taking unilateral decisions for the past two years.
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