Prevail upon govt not to go ahead with N-pact, Left to UPA allies

New Delhi, Jun 18 (UNI) The Left parties today made an earnest appeal to the UPA allies to prevail upon the Manmohan Singh government not to proceed to seek approval of the text of the India-specific safeguards agreement from the Board of Governors of the IAEA and reiterated their implacable opposition to the Indo-US nuclear pact.

''The joint statement we have issued this evening is essentially in the nature of an appeal to the allies,'' CPI General Secretary A B Bardhan told UNI shortly after the four Left parties held a meeting to discuss the situation arising out of postponement till June 25 of the UPA-Left panel meet on the nuclear deal today.

Earlier talking to newspersons, Mr Bardhan read out a one-page statement containing the background of the panel, discussions at various stages and the government's assurance that the committee's findings would be taken into account while deciding on the fate of the deal.

''In the seventh and eighth sessions of the UPA-Left Committee in March and May 2008, some of the features of the text were discussed. However, the text has not been made available to the committee.

''As far as the Left parties are concerned, they have not been able to form any opinion on the text of the safeguards agreement .

Neither has the committee arrived at its findings,'' the statement said.

The statement was issued after top leaders of the Left parties met at the A K Gopalan Bhawan, the CPI (M) headquarters. Besides Mr Bardhan , his counterpart in CPI (M) Prakash Karat, CPM politbureau member Sitaram Yechury, CPI National Secretary D Raja, RSP General Secretary T J Chandrachoodan, and Forward Bloc Leader and Rajya Sabha member Debvrat Biswas participated in the meeting.

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