New Delhi: In a clear message that it will pull the rug if the government went ahead with the Indo-US nuclear accord, the CPI (M) today bluntly told the Congress-led coalition that it would not be there to help it seal the deal.
''We are not saying scrap the nuclear deal. What we are telling the Government is don't proceed. If it does, we won't be there to help this Government finalise the agreement,'' Karat said at a Conference.
Karat made this clear after strongly opposing the 123 agreement and India's burgeoning strategic and military partnership with the US.
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Referring to the political crisis triggered by the Left rejection of the deal, Karat said "the basic problem is the fact that the rulers of our country have accepted (US Secretary of State) Condoleezza Rice's offer that the US will help India become a major power in the world."
He spoke at length about the agreement and criticised the Manmohan Singh government's "insistence" to go ahead with the deal "bypassing Parliament" and ignoring the views of most of the parties, including the Left on which the government depends for majority.
Karat also came down heavily on the Prime Minister for describing US President George W Bush as the "greatest friend of India" saying it was a "supreme irony" that the "most hated President" within the US is the "greatest benefactor" of this government.
"I would like the Prime Minister to be very careful about choosing his friends," he said and referred to "Bush's other friends" like just-resigned Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and former British premier Tony Blair.
In a lighter vein, he said Blair has resigned, Abe has gone, Australian Prime Minister John Howard is going and everybody know about Pakistan and the condition of Bush's favourite ally Pervez Musharraf and added that "we don't want our Prime Minister in that category."
Karat said the Left wants the government to tell the Bush administration clearly that "we find Parliament of ours, the democracy of ours, is creating lot of problems and so let's postpone the deal."
Asserting that it was upto the government now to take a decision as the Left has made its position clear, he said "we won't be there to help this government conclude this agreement."
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