NEW DELHI, Oct 9: The India government and its communist allies stepped back from the brink on Tuesday, agreeing to meet again this month to resolve a row over a nuclear deal with the United States that threatens to spark a snap election.
A fourth meeting of a panel formed to end the face-off between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government and the left appeared to make little progress. But both sides came out putting a brave face on what has been a hot-tempered impasse.
“Where is the crisis? There is no crisis. We are meeting again on the 22nd,” A.B. Bardhan, chief of the Communist Party of India, one of the main left parties, said after the meeting.
“We will not let the government fall,” Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav said, holding Bardhan’s hand up high.
Indian stocks rose more than 4 per cent to a record high on Tuesday on news the two sides would meet again.
But while the communists, who keep the ruling coalition in power with their parliamentary support, signalled they were not yet openly parting political ways, many Indians see a snap vote as only a matter of time with neither side wanting to compromise.The deal would be a milestone in India-US relations, not the best of friends during the Cold War. It would allow India to import US nuclear fuel and reactors, despite having tested nuclear weapons and not signing the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The communists insist the deal would make India subservient to US interests, but the government seems determined to seal the accord, potentially its biggest foreign policy achievement.
The pact has been criticised by many outside India, including some members of the US Congress who say it undercuts a US-led campaign to curtail the nuclear ambitions of nations like Iran.—Reuters
