"If they are not changing their plans — of going to the IAEA board of governors with the safeguards text — by June 25 then we will break (away)" Prakash Karat

New Delhi, June 20: Prakash Karat has set the Centre a June 25 deadline to abandon its plans about the nuclear deal or face a “break” with the Left.

“If they are not changing their plans — of going to the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) board of governors with the safeguards text — by June 25, then we will break (away),” the CPM general secretary told The Telegraph today.

Karat (in Telegraph picture) made it clear that the Left would foil any plan by the Centre to go ahead with the deal as a minority government, or to secure support from other parties.

He didn’t name the Samajwadi Party but sources have said the government was eyeing the support of Mulayam Singh Yadav’s 38 MPs in Parliament for the deal.

CPM sources dropped a hint that the way to stop a minority government from moving on the deal could include pulling the government down.

They said the “break” Karat had spoken of meant “a break from association with the government in all manners”.

“There can’t be a question of a minority government. A break in effect means we are not with this government in any way. And as anybody knows, it’s a political decision for which we are all set,” a Left leader said.

On June 25, the Left-United Progressive Alliance committee on the nuclear deal is scheduled to hold its next meeting.

The communist parties continued their discussions with the Congress’s coalition partners today. But the Left sources said their opposition to the deal was not dependent on the stand taken by these UPA allies.

Karat had an hour-long meeting with Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar this morning. CPI national secretary D. Raja met railway minister Lalu Prasad and spoke over the phone with Pawar. Karat and Raja later met at the CPM headquarters.

“There is no change in our stand. As far as the (UPA) allies are concerned, they are our allies too. So we are explaining to them that if a crisis is precipitated, it’s not because of us. We never changed our position on the deal,” Raja said.

Left sources conceded that the UPA partners, though sympathetic to the CPM and the CPI, could not be expected to snap their ties with the Congress. “A lot of political arithmetic goes into taking these crucial decisions,” a Left leader said.

“For example, the DMK has to think of the 35 Congress MLAs in Tamil Nadu that support the government. Then there are electoral calculations that will weigh down on allies like the Rashtriya Janata Dal.”

The Left sources said the Centre had also mooted activating the second phase of the deal’s operationalisation -- going to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) for a waiver – parallel with the IAEA stage.

The government’s argument, they explained, was that the matter had to be discussed with the grouping’s 45 countries and that could be a lengthy process.