NEW DELHI, Dec 14: India’s main communist party that lends make or break support to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s coalition rule has warned of mid-term polls if the Congress-led government went ahead with the Indo-US nuclear deal, Press Trust of India said on Friday.

“If this is the issue they (UPA) want to break up with us on, all political parties need to be prepared for elections any time,” CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat told India Today magazine.

He was asked if the Communists were prepared for polls should the government go ahead with the deal.

Mr Karat said that the recent nuclear deal debate in Parliament had “clearly established” that a majority of the MPs were opposed to the 123 agreement “in some way or the other”. Considering this, “it will be better for the government to not proceed with the deal”.

On India’s growing strategic partnership with the United States, Mr Karat said “we expect the government to go by the common minimum programme which talks of pursuing closer engagement and relations with the US, but not a strategic alliance”.

“We have problems both with the Indo-US Defence Framework Agreement and the joint statement issued during the Prime Minister’s visit to Washington in July 2005,” Mr Karat added.

The Marxist hardliner also sought a review of India’s position vis-a-vis Iran as the US National Intelligence Estimate has said that Tehran had stopped any efforts at a weapons programme in 2003.

“Along with the nuclear deal, foreign policy issues were also discussed by the UPA-Left committee. We hope this will resolve some of the problems,” he added.

Mr Karat said his party was looking forward to the formation of a ‘’policy-based third alternative’’ which would be different from the BJP and the Congress.

‘’CPI-M looks forward to the formation of a third alternative in the country,’’ said Mr Karat, who was named Newsmaker of the Year by India Today, in an interview to the magazine.

‘’But such an alternative cannot be seen purely as an alliance. We still strive to get a policy-based platform, which can be distinct from that of the BJP and the Congress,’’ he added.