BJP not to rescue ''collapsing'' UPA Govt

{image-venkaih naidu_20062008.jpg news.oneindia.in}Hyderabad, June 20: Declaring that the countdown for the collapse of the UPA had began, senior BJP leader M Venkaiah Naidu today said his party would not rescue the Centre which was at loggerheads with the Left over the Indo-US nuclear deal. The UPA Government was not even willing to show the draft agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to the Left parties, leave alone taking into confidence major parties on the crucial issue concerning the nation, he told a press conference here.

''There is no question of supporting the UPA Government on the nuclear deal in its present form as it is against national interest,'' the Rajya Sabha member asserted, adding, ''the countdown for the collapse of the UPA experiment has started and early elections to the Lok Sabha are imminent.'' Predicting that the Lok Sabha elections were likely to be held either in the coming November or January, he said he expected Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to make an announcement on August 15.

There was a dilemma within the Congress whether to go for Lok Sabha elections with the next round of Assembly elections or after that, he said.

Claiming the nuclear deal was only a pretext for the Left parties to withdraw support to the government, he said both the parties -- fighting each other in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura --could not continue the present marriage of convenience any longer.

UNI