Pranab gives clean chit to PM on dealing with political crises

Dera Baba Nanak, June 28, : Giving a clean chit to Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh in dealing with various political crises in the country, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said today that whatever Dr. Singh was doing is in the larger interest of the country.

Mukherjee was speaking on the sidelines of a visit to Dera Baba Nanak to assess the feasibility of the much in demand corridor to the Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib from India.

On CPI (M) general secretary Prakash Karat's allegation that the Prime Minister was solely to blame for the impasse between the UPA Government and the Left on the nuclear deal issue and other issues such as the price rise, Mukherjee said: "Currently, our power generation capacity is 1,60,000 megawatts from all sources, and if we want nine to 10 percent of GDP growth up to 2030, our total requirement would be four times more than that we are having today."

He reiterated that what Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh did was the absolutely correct thing.

While answering another question about the fate of the UPA Government, Mukherjee said: "We are in touch with the Left leaders and other leaders of the UPA partners, and it (the nuclear issue) is a very important national issue. We are talking to them and lets see what comes out of that". Asked whether the Congress would forge an alliance with the Samajwadi Party if the Left withdraws outside support, he said: "We are keeping an eye on them as they are holing their party meeting on July 3. Lets see their approach first."

Elaborating about the US-India Civil Nuclear Cooperation Initiative later in Amritsar, he said in the first stage it was the signing of 123 Agreement with USA.

Signing will take place at a later stage, but both countries had initiated the process of finalizing the agreed language of the text of the agreement that would have India specific safeguards, which were to be approved by the IAEA. By Ravinder Singh Robin

ANI