Calcutta, Oct. 7: Pranab Mukherjee this morning carried to Jyoti Basu’s house a three-point formula to break the nuclear deadlock, sources said.

However, they added, the CPM veteran was sceptical whether the formula has enough concessions to turn Prakash Karat around.

The package spoke of a Left walkout from the joint mechanism and agitation inside and outside Parliament if the government opened talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency. But the Left should not withdraw at least until the winter session is over sometime in December, according to the wish list.

The second point proposes that if the Left withdraws support, it should abstain from a trial of strength and help the government survive.

According to the third feature, the government would present a policy statement in Parliament as the A.B. Vajpayee government had done during the Iraq war. The statement will assure the House that India’s independent foreign policy would not be compromised by cooperation with the US.

Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and state CPM secretary Biman Bose were present when the foreign minister met Basu.

Bose suggested that Mukherjee did not deliver much. “Pranabbabu did not discuss new points today. He only informed Jyotibabu about the talks held at the Left-UPA joint meeting and what the committee had done so far,’’ he said.

Bose described Mukherjee’s visit to Basu’s house as a courtesy call and his as well as the chief minister’s presence as a “coincidence”.

However, the state CPM leader hinted that the Bengal leaders had not given up hope yet.

Asked about Sonia Gandhi’s comment that the Congress was ready for polls, Bose said: “Yes, they are talking about election. But I don’t think that Congress is making any serious attempt to go for early poll.’’

“We, too, are always ready (for the poll). But now we are busy with our organisational conferences and would discuss it in time,’’ he said, asked if the Left is prepared to accept the Congress’s challenge.

Chief minister Bhattacharjee, after meeting Mukherjee, used the platform of a Citu meeting to iterate the party’s opposition to India’s “strategic alliance with the US” but did not refer to the nuclear deal.