Honour Sense of House, abandon the N-pact: Left to govt

New Delhi, Dec 5 (UNI) The Left parties, which staged a walkout in the Rajya Sabha alongwith other opponents of the Indo-US nuclear deal, today asked the Manmohan Singh government to honour the "sense of the House" by abandoning the pact.

The government should see the writing on the wall and take into account the majority view reflected in both Houses of Parliament against the deal, top leaders of the CPI, CPI(M) and Forward Bloc told UNI.

Reminding the government that it had promised to come to Parliament on every crucial stage of the finalisation of the deal, the Left parties deplored that now the UPA seemed to have gone back on its promise.

External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who was fielded by the ruling coalition to defend the deal in both the Houses, had assured the members in the Lok Sabha during the debate on November 28 that the government would come back to Parliament on every crucial stage of finalisation of the 123 Agreement.

CPI Leaders A B Bardhan and Shamim Faizi said it seemed that the government had turned its back on its promise to take the " sense of the House" in account while deciding on the deal.

" Mr Mukherjee's reply in the Upper House should leave none one in doubt that the government now wants to simply inform Parliament after the deal is struck," the CPI leaders said.

CPI(M) Leader in the Lok Sabha Basudeb Acharia said the debate in both Houses of Parliament had proved beyond doubt that the majority view is against the deal.

" The government should honour the sense of the House and not go ahead with operationalising the deal as the democratic decorum and norm demands," Mr Acharia said.

The CPI( M) leader said although'' we don't have any right that all international treaties and agreements are ratified by Parliament, but the sense of the House had to be respected. '' Mr Mukherjee, while answering specific queries made by the initiator of the debate CPI(M) leader in the Rajya Sabha Sitaram Yechury and Leader of the Opposition Jaswant Singh, asserted that he did not want to join the controversy on the Sense of the House and that" let the process (of finalisation of the deal) be completed.'' MORE UNI KSA RP HT1638