NEW DELHI, 17 August 2007 — Lawmakers yesterday accused Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of misleading Parliament about a controversial civilian nuclear deal with the United States.
MPs from four Communist parties, who prop up Manmohan’s government in Parliament, joined opposition lawmakers in alleging that he gave false information about the deal on Monday.
“Stop speaking lies. Stop selling the country and save India,” shouted MPs from the upper house as they demanded Manmohan’s resignation.
Uproar in both the upper and lower houses of Parliament forced its adjournment for the day. The MPs focused on Manmohan’s statement on Monday in which he said the civil nuclear energy deal concluded with Washington last month would not curb India’s right to test nuclear weapons.
Manmohan’s statement seemed to contradict remarks by a US State Department spokesman on Tuesday who said the accord had provisions allowing Washington to terminate the agreement if India tested atomic weapons.
Hindu nationalists and the Communists piled pressure on Manmohan for going ahead with the accord, which permits India to buy atomic fuel, technology and plants even though it is not party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee tried to allay MPs’ concerns, saying “there is nothing in the bilateral agreement that the government has entered with the US that will tie the hands of a future government to undertake a nuclear test.”
But his promise that India retained the “sovereign right to test and would do so if it is necessary in the national interest” found few takers, with the Communists walking out and the opposition trooping to the well of the house to protest.
Earlier, Communist lawmaker D. Raja warned the government not to take the support of the Left bloc for granted.
“The Left is a serious political force and reflects the concerns of the people. The government should understand this,” he said. “Despite this, if they go ahead with the deal, then we will decide what we can do.”
The Communists are to debate the agreement at a two-day meeting in New Delhi starting today.
Tensions between the government and its allies mounted last week after Manmohan told the Communists the deal would not be renegotiated and dared them to withdraw support for the ruling Congress coalition.
Despite the future of the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal looking uncertain, the government has already selected sites for new atomic power plants, a report said yesterday.
India’s Department of Atomic Energy has already identified five coastal locations for the plants it intends to acquire, the Business Line newspaper reported.
The atomic energy department plans to generate 30,000 megawatts of power from imported nuclear fuel, S.K. Jain, chief of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited, told the daily.
Western Gujarat state, southern Andhra Pradesh and the two eastern provinces of West Bengal and Orissa will host the plants, each with a capacity to generate 6,000-8,000 megawatts of electricity.
The Indo-US pact, which covers civil nuclear technology and seeks to bring India into the loop of global atomic commerce after a gap of three decades, was concluded last month, capping two years of negotiations.
