Singh, Karat

New Delhi, June 16: The Congress believes it is time for a “reality check” on the Indo-US nuclear deal.

After Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, Pranab Mukherjee, Kamal Nath and Jairam Ramesh ratcheted up their case to get it through principally to give energy-starved India another fuel option, party sources admitted it might not be easy to swing the Left to their viewpoint.

As the designated panel of the UPA-Left meets on Wednesday to try and find common ground, a panel member conceded the fuel crunch argument could not be pulled out again.

“In the last meeting (in May), we gave them a correct overview of the fuel situation with details that were not in the public domain. We told them our existing nuclear plants were working to less than 50 per cent capacity for want of fuel and this mismatch will continue. They seemed unmoved by the presentation,” he said.

The Congress hopes the Left would agree to allow the safeguards agreement to be sent to the IAEA for approval with the caveat that India would not sign it until all restrictions were lifted and the 123 Agreement would not be operationalised without the UPA-Left co-ordination committee’s nod.

The roadmap the Congress is looking at is that after the IAEA’s approval, the US would ask the Nuclear Suppliers Group to amend its guidelines, stressing that nothing short of a clean exemption was acceptable. If the exemption is clean, India would operationalise its bilateral agreements with France and Russia.

“Pending approval, our main concern is, can we operationalise it slightly to get nuclear fuel in the short run? Russia recently sold us fuel, it was part of a bilateral contract that stipulated purchasing a reactor as well as fuel,” a panel member said.

Sources privy to the processes the deal involved said the US did not give a “clear picture” of the time-table for clinching it and whether there was a closure date that was subject to the life of the present Washington regime.

“All we are aware of is the huge pressure they are subjecting us to,” a source said.

US ambassador David C. Mulford, who met the Prime Minister last week, sought a meeting with a panel member today. The member declined, saying he was too caught up with “party matters”.

The Left has not budged from its stated position. Yesterday, Prakash Karat, the CPM general secretary and a panel member, criticised the government for the “pro-US and pro-Israel” tilt in its foreign policy and said it had deviated from the common minimum programme.

The Left parties appeared set to block any movement on the deal till August, hoping the US Congress would go into recess without getting a chance to look at the agreement.

“We are against the operationalisation of the 123 Agreement,” said a Left source and virtually scotched the Congress’s expectation to secure an approval for stage two of the IAEA negotiations.

“The IAEA safeguards agreement is another set for the operationalisation of the 123 treaty and we cannot de-link the two.”

The sources also voiced reservations over the government’s claim of getting a clean exemption from the NSG. They said a reason for the NSG’s formation was the 1974 Pokhran test.

“Already South Africa and Australia have expressed their concern over the deal. In this backdrop, we would like to know from the government how they will get the NSG’s clean exemption,” a Left leader said.

He said Wednesday’s meeting would be another occasion for the Left to “tell” the government that the deal was against India’s interests.