Left to meet Prez at noon tomorrow to withdraw support to UPA

New Delhi, Jul 8 (UNI) Leaders of the four Left parties will call on President Pratibha Devisingh Patil at 1200 hrs tomorrow to formally withdraw their support to the Manmohan Singh government in protest against its decision to go ahead with the Indo-US nuclear deal.

A Rashtrapati Bhavan spokesperson confirmed that the President had agreed to meet General Secretaries Prakash Karat (CPI-M), Debabrata Biswas (FB), A B Bardhan (CPI) and T J Chandrachoodan (RSP) at noon.

Official sources said the President was likely to give about three weeks for the government to prove its majority on the floor of the Lok Sabha in the wake of the withdrawal of support by the 59 MPs of the Left.

Since Parliament was not in session at present, a two-week notice had to be given to the Lok Sabha MPs for convening a sitting of the Lok Sabha to facilitate a confidence vote, the sources said.

Though the Samajwadi Party, which accounted for 39 MPs, and a few other smaller parties had extended their support to the UPA government, which might provide majority to the government, a cofidence vote on the floor of the House was still necessary under the Supreme Court verdict in the SR Bommai case, they pointed out.

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