Learn to run govt with different pol groups: Left to Cong

New Delhi, Oct 26 (UNI) The Left parties today joined issue with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over his reported remarks on a ''fractured mandate'', saying the Congress should learn how to run a government with different political groups.

''When even a political front was not going to get an absolute majority in the future Lok Sabha polls, an individual party also would not achieve the same,'' they said, adding that the ''fractured mandate'' should be seen as a reflection of maturation of the Indian Democracy.

Talking to UNI, the top leaders of the CPI and CPI(M) also asked the ruling UPA coalition not to surrender to the US administration on the yearend deadline to wrap up its negotiations with the IAEA and the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

CPI leaders A B Bardhan and S Sudhakar Reddy said coalition governments have now become the order of the day. ''If the ruling coalition convinces and properly coordinates with the partners on the issues of public importance, there should be no difficulty.'' Coalition governments could no longer be run in the name of the ''bigger brother'', the CPI leaders added.

CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and editor of party Weekly People's Democracy Sitaram Yechury said, ''The Prime Minister's remarks were not justified as the Congress-led coalition was functioning on the basis of the National Common Minimum Programme. And the nuclear issue is not part of the CMP, which indeed has endorsed a joint commitment to an independent foreign policy, which the Left feels, would be compromised by the deal.'' The Left leader's observation on the ''fractured mandate'' came in the backdrop of the Prime Minister's reported comment, ''I must admit that given the nature of competitive politics and the very fractured mandates given to governments, it has become difficult sometimes for us to do what is manifestly obvious.'' On the US mounting pressure on the Manmohan Singh government to operationalise the deal by the yearend, CPI senior leader Gurudas Dasgupta said,''The government should not surrender to any such pressure.'' Mr Yechury was more forthright and aggressive when he said US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns' ''move fast'' message to India over the deal amounted to ''an insult to the Indian Democracy.'' The CPI(M) leader asked the government to let the Parliament have the last word on the deal.

UNI