Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Sep 08, 2007
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Staff Reporter
Parliament has no jurisdiction over such defence pacts Formation of JPC an irrelevant issue
GUNTUR: Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat said here on Friday that the Left parties were not in a position to stop the government technically from going into the discussions with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as part of the India-U.S. nuclear deal “as Parliament has no jurisdiction over such defence pacts and hence formation of Joint Parliamentary Committee was an irrelevant issue.” “Implementing the 123 nuclear agreement between India and United States is essential for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s survival in power as he believes this was the best deal country could have made with the U.S.,” Mr. Karat told presspersons. A decision on continuing support to the government depended on the outcome of a September 14 meeting, he said. The UPA could not go ahead with the nuclear agreement without amending the Atomic Energy Act 1962, which the Left parties would not allow at any cost, Mr. Karat said emphatically. The Bharatiya Janata Party was not interested in stalling the 123 agreement, which was clear from its demand for forming a JPC, he said. It (the JPC) could only formally approve the pact, he said. “What the UPA does not talk about is the Hyde Act, which compromises India’s interests,” he said. “If the government is serious about the future energy needs of the country, it should get a techno-economic study done on the production cost of nuclear power vis-À-vis thermal power as according to the GSI [Geological Survey of India] estimates the coal reserves would last more than a century.” The country’s sovereignty could not be put at stake just for fulfilling energy needs, though the Left parties were not against harnessing nuclear power, Mr. Karat said. There were other sources of nuclear energy which remained untapped. The nuclear pact was only a precursor to the entry of private companies into defence production. CPI national secretary and MP, Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy, demanded that all the defence deals be discussed in Parliament. “Put on notice”
Vijayawada Special Correspondent writes: Mr. Karat said here that the UPA government had been put on notice by the Left. It was time the UPA decided whether it was committed more to the Common Minimum Programme of the UPA or to the Bush administration. Mr. Karat wanted the Prime Minister to explain why he was in such a “hurry to enter into an agreement” for such a long term, when the majority of members of Parliament opposed it. This made the Left parties “suspicious” about the commitment of the government to the CMP. The “war games” in the Bay of Bengal was a declaration by the U.S. that India had become its military ally. He reminded the government that the same Seventh Fleet wanted to act against the country in the past.
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