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The UPA government today circulated the text of safeguard agreement accord to its 35-nation Board of Governors for approval and stepped on towards the controversial Indo-US nuke deal.

“At the request of the Government of India, the IAEA Secretariat today circulated to members of the IAEA board of governors for their consideration the draft of an ‘Agreement with the Government of India for the Application of Safeguards to Civilian Nuclear Facilities’,” International Atomic Energy Agency spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said in a press statement issued at the Agency headquarters in Vienna.

The agreement was sent after the Left parties withdrew support from the UPA government and submitted their resignation letters to the President on Wednesday. Left parties are against the Indo-US nuke deal and demanded the government to prove a vote of confidence in a week before approaching towards the deal.

The move described by Fleming as a “turning point” in India’s effort to push the deal came under attack from the Left and the BJP which saw a contradiction in government’s stand but the Congress said there is no contradiction.

According to the agreement, India will place its civilian nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards to facilitate full civil nuclear cooperation between India and members of IAEA.

“The chairman of the board is consulting with board members to agree on a date for a board meeting when the agreement would be considered,” she added.

For the complete text of India-IAEA safeguard agreement, visit: http://im.rediff.com/news/2008/jul/iaea.pdf

Tags: Congress, Government, IAEA, India, Safeguards Draft, UPA

After the Left parties have withdrawn support to the Congress led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government President Pratibha Patil has asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to meet her on Thursday.

BJP demanded that the government be asked to prove its majority within a week and in wake of these political crises, Singh who is in Japan for the G-8 summit is asked by Patil to meet her. He will be back past midnight.

Samajwadi Party General Secretary Amar Singh and its Parliamentary party leader Ramgopal Yadav also met the President and gave a fresh letter of support of 39 of its MPs to the government.

Earlier in the day, top leaders of CPM, CPI, Forward Bloc and RSP met President Pratibha Patil at Rashtrapati Bhavan and submitted a list of 60 Members of Parliament and handed over separate letters withdrawing their support to the government. They also submitted a joint communication asking her to “direct the Prime Minister to seek a vote of confidence in the Lok Sabha immediately”.

Lok Sabha has a total of 543 members. SP, PDP and some independents are supporting the government and UPA hopes to get 272 votes for a simple majority in the Lok Sabha.

Ajit Singh-led RLD, JD(S) headed by former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda, Mamta Bannerjee’s Trinamul Congress and TRS come in the “undecided” category but have given enough hints of backing the government in a trust vote.

There are clouds of worries in the Indian political ring. There is a curiosity among all regarding government’s survival? Now there are uncertainties whether the government will able to prove a vote of confidence within a week and will retain its power or will it fall??

Tags: Congress, G-8, India, JD, Manmohan Singh, MM Singh, PM, Pratibha Patil, President, RLD, SP, TMC, UPA

A few hours after the Left parties pulled out their support to Congress led UPA government, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday announced that the UPA government will have to seek trust vote of confidence on the issue of very controversial and crucial Indo-US nuclear deal.

UPA government who announced to approach the IAEA to finalize the safeguards agreement will move for the same only after winning the trust votes.

After holding a talk with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is in Japan to attend the G8 meet, Pranab said while talking to the reporters that the government will seek vote of confidence as soon as it receives a formal communication from President Pratibha Patil.

The normal Monsoon Session of Parliament will be convened from August 11 as informed by Mukherjee.

Replying to the Left parties’ complaint that UPA is hiding full text of safeguard agreement, Mukherjee said, “Full text of the safeguards agreement could not be shared with Left partners as it is a “privileged” confidential document between the Indian government and the IAEA.”

Mukherjee told that a brief summary of the agreement was already unveiled to the Left parties and full text of the safeguards agreement could be shared with “third parties” only after going through laid down procedures of the IAEA.

He also clarified that outcome of talks with IAEA had been circulated among all members of the UPA-Left co-ordination committee as agreed in the November 16, 2007 meeting.

Mukherjee told that those who want a full text of the safeguards agreement would have had to join the government to have access to it.

Tags: Congress, External Affairs minister, India, Indo US, Left, Left Parties, Nuclear deal, Nuke Deal, Pranab, Pranab Mukherjee, UPA, USA

The Left parties on Tuesday announced their withdrawal to the UPA government and said they would meet the President tomorrow to withdraw support to the congress led UPA government implementing their threat to pull the rug over the controversial Indo-US nuclear deal.

The announcement came a day after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stated that “India will approach IAEA very soon” which rendered any further talks on the issue meaningless.

“As you are aware, the Left parties had decided that if the government goes to the IAEA Board of Governors, they will withdraw support. In view of the Prime Minister’s announcement, that time has come,” CPI (M) General Secretary Prakash Karat told reporters.

“The meeting of UPA-Left committee called by government on July 10 was meaningless now.” said Karat.

The four parties - CPI (M), CPI, Forward Bloc and RSP have sought an appointment with President Pratibha Patil for Wednesday morning to submit their letter of withdrawal of support.

“We will also urge the President to ask the government to prove its majority on the floor of the House,” a top Left leader said after the hour-long meeting of the four parties which decided to pull their support to Congress.

Giving a crack to their four-and-a-half year relationship with the UPA Communist Party of India (CPI) National Secretary D Raja said, “We will vote against Congress in Parliament,”

“Why is the Manmohan Singh government keeping the draft of the IAEA agreement secret from the people of India,” the Left leader asked.

In a joint statement, the four Left parties said they had been demanding the full text of the draft IAEA agreement saying it was necessary to see whether “any corrective action is possible on India’s part if the US discontinues the fuel supplies”.

Soon after the announcement of withdrawal of its support by Left to the UPA Government, the Congress has called for an emergency meeting at the residence of Sonia Gandhi, 10 Janpath.

Tags: Congress, India, India US, Indo US, Left, Left Parties, Nuclear deal, Nuke Deal, UPA, US

After the Left has set a July 7 deadline for the government to clarify its position on whether it was going ahead on the Indo-US nuclear deal, Congress on Friday sought to reject the deadline. Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi told reporters that Sovereign governments or political parties cannot be subjected to deadlines.

Shighvi told that it is the time to work on triple objectives- to do a nuclear deal in national interest, to carry along our allies with us for that purpose and to go to elections as per the Constitutional schedule. Rejecting suggestions of an “unholy alliance”, Singhvi said, “Samajwadi Party and the Congress have never been mutually untouchable in the same sense as the Left and the BJP or the Congress and the BJP.”

Singhvi said the Congress had not changed its stand on the nuclear deal “by even one millimeter”.  He said that the deal is totally in national interest.

“We are happy that other parties in the national interest are slowly converging to our view point,” he said.

Left is strongly opposing the deal to happen. The party has threatened to withdraw support for the government if it seeks approval for the deal from IAEA, the next international move needed to operationalise the pact.

Yesterday Left parties gave a deadline to the government saying that it must tell by July 7 about its plans towards approaching the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for the safeguards agreement, if any.

“We wish to know definitely whether the government is proceeding to seek the approval of the safeguards agreement by the board of governors of the IAEA,” said Prakash Karat, CPI (M) General Secretary, reading out a letter addressed to the government.

The party said it would launch a national campaign from July 14 to explain its opposition to the nuclear deal and what it called “runaway” inflation.

Tags: BJP, Congress, India, Nuclear deal, Nuke Deal, Samajwadi Party, SP, US

Congress President Sonia Gandhi has buzzed the poll buzzer on Saturday asking the party to prepare for general elections during a meeting convened by her of top party functionaries.

The announcement clearly indicates that the party is willing to risk elections amid soaring inflation rate and dilemma of N-deal.  Sonia Gandhi directed senior leaders to draw up time-bound programs and strategies to re-energize the party in all states to get prepare for the polls.

“This meeting was about poll preparations. The Lok Sabha elections were also discussed, the party has to get ready for polls and everybody has been asked to draw up programs and submit the same at the next meeting,” AICC general secretary Janardan Dwivedi told reporters here.

The Congress president has given party men a time-table for building the party at all levels, Veerappa Moily, chairman of the AICC Media Cell said.

Sonia during the meet also directed Congress leaders to tell people about party’s achievements like the Rs 60,000-crore farm loan waiver scheme announced by Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram in the 2008 Union Budget.

However, much talked N-deal is not subjected to discussion during the meet. “The issue has already been discussed at two working committee meetings,” a senior leader said.

Though the UPA constituents strongly favor the nuclear deal, they hold almost equally strident views against holding of early elections.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had on Thursday released its first list of candidates for the next Lok Sabha elections.  The list has names of five other candidates - Navjot Singh Sidhu (Amritsar), Vinod Khanna (Gurdaspur), Shripad Y Naik (Panaji), Anurag Thakur (Hamirpur) and TPS Rawat (Pauri).

BJP’s prime ministerial candidate LK Advani will contest from Gandhinagar constituency in Gujarat. Lok Sabha elections are due around April next year.

Tags: BJP, Congress, Elections India, Gandhi, Poll, Sonia Gandhi

The much awaited Left-United Progressive Alliance (UPA) coordination meeting over the Indo-US Civil Nuclear Agreement ended on Wednesday evening without a decision. After a 90-minute meeting of the 15-member committee, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and CPM leader Sitaram Yechury said that the committee will come to a conclusion on IAEA safeguards in its next meeting, for which they failed to mention a date.

Its ninth meeting of Left-UPA over the crucial Indo-US nuke deal which went undecidedly against the backdrop of the standoff between the two sides on the Indo-US nuclear deal. It was reported that all members except NCP leader Sharad Pawar attended the meeting where both the sides stuck to their respective positions even while maintaining that they did not favor early elections.

The two sides met at the residence of External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, government’s chief negotiator, to discuss the latest situation arising out of government’s determination to approach the IAEA for finalizing an India-specific safeguards agreement.

The committee completed its discussions on all aspects of the agreement. Sources told that the next meeting of the committee is likely to be held in mid July.

Earlier, Pranab Mukherjee met Prime Minister at his residence (second time in a day) to give details of the situation before the crucial UPA-Left coordination committee meeting at 5 pm. Before this, Mukherjee had called on PM Manmohan Singh at the PMO to discuss the issue. The meeting came after the Left parties told Mukherjee earlier in the day that they would not accept a compromise formula that would have allowed the government to finalize the safeguards agreement required for the nuke deal, with the IAEA.

Left has dismissed the formula as “meaningless” hours before a crucial meet of the UPA-Left co-ordination committee to iron out differences on the civil nuclear deal. The Left parties maintained that they ‘understood’ the safeguards agreement would be on auto pilot mode for progress on the deal immediately after the IAEA Board of Governors approved it.  Later, Karat, Mukherjee and Antony had gone to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi’s residence to apprise her of the Left’s stand. Mukherjee also met UPA allies at 4:00 pm ahead of the UPA-Left committee meet.

Karat, meanwhile, also met Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav, with the latter reiterating that his party would take a final decision on the nuke deal after next week’s UNPA meet.

Tags: , Congress, IAEA, India, India US, Left Parties, N-deal, Nuclear deal, Nuke Deal, UPA, USA

Mayawati led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has pull out its support for the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) at the centre. The BSP chief Mayawati has accused the UPA of neglecting Uttar Pradesh and meting out step-motherly treatment to her party and the UP government.

Uttar Pradesh Cheif Minister Mayawati sent a letter to President Pratibha Patil and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi stating her withdrawal of support.

“There won’t be any electoral alliance neither with Congress nor with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). UPA has left the Taj Corridor case lingering against me for political mileage and its attitude to my state has been very hostile,” Mayawati added.

UPA bears support by 220 members out of 543 members of Loksabha while 17 members of BSP refused to stand by them. The Left parties, which have 59 lawmakers as a block, extend outside support to the government.

“Even after seven months the attitude of the UPA Government has left lot to be desired. Taking this, the interest of the common man and the party into perspective, we have decided to withdraw support from the Congress led UPA Government,” she said

“I personally met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and asked him to give an economic package of Rs 88,000 crore and he promised to do something about it. Till date, nothing had been done,” she added.

Tags: BSP, Cabinet Government, Congress, Mayawati, UP Government, UPA, Uttar Pradesh

Indian nation pays homage to the country’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru on his 44th death anniversary today on 27th May. UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi along with Vice President Hamid Ansari on Tuesday led the nation in paying homage to the former leader of the country.

Ansari and Gandhi paid floral tributes at Shanti Van, the memorial of Nehru. Besides them, Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora and Minister of State for Urban Development Ajay Maken were also present on the occasion as priests recited hymns from sacred texts.

Chairman of National Commission for Scheduled Caste Buta Singh and senior Congress leaders Motilal Vohra and J P Aggarwal were also present to pay their homage to the leader.

An all religion prayer meeting was organised in the premises of the memorial followed by a speech given by the late Nehru played at the end of prayer meet.

Nehru, born on November 14, 1889, breathed his last in the early hours of May 27, 1964. He provided his immense contributions in the making of a strong, secular and modern India.

Tags: Congress, Gandhi, India, Jawaharlal Nehru, Nehru, Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, UPA

The BJP has finally registered its major victory in the Karnataka Assembly elections on Sunday. The first ever Bharatiya Janata Party government in the south bagged a simple majority by getting 111 seats out of 224-member State Assembly.

BJP chief ministerial candidate B S Yeddyurappa will take oath as chief minister on May 28. Delighted by his success Yeddyurappa said, “We are humbled by the people’s verdict. Development is our priority now.”

“It’s a victory for dalits, farmers and backwards. We will give equal impetus to development of rural as well as urban areas.” He said to the media in Banglore.

The election process ends by May 28 on the day the Election Commission was expected to notify the constitution of the 13th Legislative Assembly in Karnataka.

“The verdict is against the Congress, decisively against the JD(S) and substantially in the favor of the BJP,” BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

Congress emerged as the second largest party in the state, winning 79 seats, while JD(S) managed to win only 27 seats. Independents and others came out winners in six constituencies.

It is Congress party’s 16th loss in the four years that it returned to power at the Centre. India has seen 24 assembly elections since 2004, including four states that went to the polls along with that year’s general election.

The Congress party has won eight of those elections and lost 16.

Tags: Assembly Elections, BJP, Congress, Elections, Karnataka, Karnataka Assembly Elections, Yeddyurappa