Indian Left makes overtures as deadline looms

Friday, 7 March 2008

Left-wing political parties have asked the Indian government to convene a meeting of a joint committee with the governing UPA coalition to discuss the stalled US-India nuclear cooperation agreement.

According to reports in the Indian press, Prakash Karat, general secretary of the Communist Party of India, has written to External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee on behalf of the Left parties to demand an "urgent" meeting of the UPA-Left committee by 15 March. The committee last met in November 2007. The latest development follows warnings earlier in the week from Richard A Boucher, US assistant secretary of state, that India would need to complete work on the agreement by the end of May if the Bush administration is to present it to Congress in June, and if the deal is to be completed before the end of the Bush administration in November.

The US-India deal would open the door for nuclear fuel and technology trade between India and the US, and trade with other countries would likely follow. However, despite diplomatic efforts, the final text of the so-called '123 Agreement' has been stuck in the Indian parliament since August last year, stalled by opposition from the communist parties who claim the deal infringes Indian sovereignty.

Indian president Manmohan Singh's coalition government relies on the support of the Communists to keep it in power, and the Communists have warned that they will bring the Indian government down if the deal goes ahead. However, recent developments have led analysts to suggest that the Indian government is gearing up for the possibility of an early general election, implying that the government is preparing to push the deal through.