How the UPA-Left deal was hammered out

NEW DELHI: The deal between the UPA and the Left on the Indo-US nuclear agreement was a hard-fought one, with both sides arguing and haggling over key words till the very end. At the last hour, when CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat was reading the final draft hammered out between external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee and politburo member Sitaram Yechury, Karat suggested a crucial change that could have been a deal-breaker.

Karat said that the word “findings” in the last line of the joint statement be replaced with “conclusion”. The Congress, however, stuck to its guns and the final line read: “The operationalisation of the deal will take into account the committee’s findings.”

Pressure to work out a deal came from both MPs and UPA allies since failure could have brought down the government and forced a mid-term election. In the end, both parties pulled back from the brink and the Congress agreed to set up a committee to look into the implications of the nuclear deal.

The Left agreed to fudge the issue of whether the government will be entirely bound by the committee’s views.

The committee will look into the nuclear agreement, its implications for foreign policy and security, and the impact of the US Hyde Act on the agreement. The key to the deal was the phrase on “operationalisation”. It gives the Left space to continue to delay the deal, if it so wants, even while not tying down the hands of the Congress completely.

The deal, hammered out after days of intense negotiations and back-channel contacts between the two sides, threatened to come unstuck on Wednesday evening when the Left insisted on a public commitment from the Congress that it would not proceed with negotiations with the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Suppliers Group before agreeing to the formation of the committee.

The core committee of the Congress then went into a huddle at the Prime Minister’s Parliament House office to study the Left’s position. Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, defence minister AK Antony, Pranab Mukherjee and Sonia’s political secretary Ahmad Patel deliberated on the demand for close to two hours. At one point, RJD chief Lalu Yadav was also called in for consultation.

The breakthrough came when both sides decided to work on a mutually acceptable formulation and the scene shifted to Pranab Mukherjee’s room in Parliament. He and Sitaram Yechury then went to work on the statement. An hour later Yechury carried the draft to CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat, who tried to make some more changes, but gave in when the Congress declined to budge.

Karat spoke to his CPI counterpart AB Bardhan over the phone and followed it up with an impromptu Left meeting in the afternoon attended by RSP chief Abani Roy and Forward Bloc leaders Debabrata Biswas and G.Devarajan. After that he drove off to the Prime Minister’s residence for a joint meeting with Congress leaders.

Though both sides interpreted the agreement in their own way, they appeared visibly relieved that the crisis had been averted. Even a normally reticent Sonia Gandhi waved to the media and gave the thumbs-up sign as she emerged from the meeting with Left party leaders at the Prime Minister’s Race Course residence. At the meeting with the Prime Minister, Left leaders even gently ribbed the latter asking him if he was “still angry” with them.