Trust vote first, then IAEA: Congress

{image-nuke deal_10072008.jpg news.oneindia.in}New Delhi, Jul 10: The UPA Government will go to the IAEA only after winning the trust vote, and will withdraw from the India-US nuclear deal if it loses the confidence of the members of the Lok Sabha, the Congress said on Thursday, July 10.

Addressing reporters, Congress Media Department head M Veerrappa Moily claimed that the Government was in a majority even after the Left parties withdrew their support to it. ''It is CPI (M) General Secretary Prakash Karat's perception that we are a minority government.... We have not lost the majority....We will demonstrate in the Lok Sabha that we have the majority,'' he said. Only after winning the trust vote, he said, the Government would go to to IAEA. Countering Mr Karat, he said it was wrong to interpret the Government's decision to circulate the text of the draft safeguards agreement and its request for convening the meeting of the Board of Governors of IAEA as going to the IAEA.

''Going to the Board of Governors means consideration of the draft agreement by the Board at its next meeting whenever it is scheduled in which India will participate,'' Mr Moily explained.

He said the decision to request the IAEA to convene the meeting was taken as early as on July 8 when the Left parties decided to withdraw support to the Government.

He clarified that only after the text was circulated to the members of the Boards of Governors of IAEA and the documents became ''derestricted'' that the Government put it on the External Affairs Ministry website.

On President Pratibha Devisingh Patil asking Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to meeting her later today in the backdrop of latest political developments, the spokesman said it was not the President's desirabilty, but the PM's initiative to go in for trust vote.

Hitting back at the BJP for dubbing the Government's decision to sent the safequards agreement to the IAEA Board as ''midnight deceit'', Mr Moily said said it was then ''daylight'' in Vienna, the IAEA headquarters.

UNI