NEW DELHI, 5 September 2007 — Warning the government of “severe consequences” if it went ahead with the Indo-US nuclear deal, the left parties kick-started a countrywide agitation yesterday against a joint naval exercise involving the United States in the Bay of Bengal.

Veteran Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Jyoti Basu flagged of a procession in Kolkata accusing the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government of tilting toward the United States. “The UPA government is trying to co-opt the country into the American fold which is against the common minimum program on the basis of which the left has extended support to the federal government,” Basu, 94, said. “This is against the country’s independent foreign policy,” he said.

Prakash Karat, CPI-M general secretary, reiterated the left bloc’s warning against the government approaching the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for negotiations on the India-specific Safeguards Agreement. Karat told the party paper Deshabhimani in Thiruvananthapuram: “The government is planning to approach the IAEA in September. Usually, September is the time when the IAEA conducts most of its business. The CPI-M’s firm stand is that the government should not approach the IAEA before the Hyde Act panel brings out its report. If the government takes any follow-up action (to the deal into effect), all steps to stall it would be taken,” Karat said.

Criticizing the multination naval exercises, Karat said that CPI-M was opposed to joint military exercises with the United States. “This started during the time of Narasimha Rao. This has now developed into a total military alliance. America’s intention is to make India its strategic partner like Japan and Australia,” he said. Though the nuclear crisis has been resolved for the time being with the Congress party having agreed to form a committee to address the concerns of the left parties on nuclear deal, the committee has still not been formed.

A.B. Bardhan, of the Communist Party of India, who is leading the protest procession from Kolkata to Visakhapatnam, said that he had no knowledge of the progress made in the constitution of this committee. He said: “If the government brushes aside our concerns and goes ahead with its original plan, it will face the music.” Downplaying the street protests staged by the left bloc against the naval exercises, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said here that they have been on since 1992. The key committee on the Indo-US nuclear deal would be constituted “in a day or two,” Mukherjee said on sidelines of a conference of editors from India, Brazil and South Africa.

On whether Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi would be on the committee, Mukherjee replied: “Let us wait and see what is the composition of the committee.”

Malabar-2007, the naval exercise in the Bay of Bengal, began yesterday morning. The war games are the seventh involving aircraft carriers, submarines and fighter jets of India and the United States. This year, the exercises have been expanded to include a few ships from Australia, Japan and Singapore in what some analysts see as a new alliance of democracies ranged against the growing military might of China.

“The basic aim is to learn from each other and gain from each others’ expertise,” a top Indian defense official said. “By including more countries this time we are saving on costs and time as we won’t need separate exercises with each country. If this sends a message to China in the process, why not?” said the official, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity as he is not authorized to speak to the media.

— Additional input from Reuters