New Delhi, June 28
The Left leaders have started targeting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh personally for insisting on the Indo-US nuclear deal.
Mohammad Salim of the CPM and Shameem Faizi of the CPI appealed to the Prime Minister on Saturday to give up his obsession on the deal and instead concentrate on containing inflation.
Their comments came a day after CPM general secretary Prakash Karat wrote a signed editorial in the party organ, People’s Democracy, squarely blaming the Prime Minister for creating a political crisis in the country by insisting on proceeding with the nuclear deal.
Salim, deputy leader of the CPM in the Lok Sabha, said, “Every individual has his own capacity, potential and capability. Singh (Manmohan) when chosen for the country’s top post by the UPA, his USP has been that of an economist so he should concentrate on this field”.
Dismissing the Prime Minister’s perspective of the deal, Salim said, “He has never been considered a strategist. But unfortunately during the last leg of his tenure, he got his priorities wrongly placed. Rather than worrying over how he would face Bush, he should worry how his party would face the people of the country particularly in the wake of the rising prices of essential commodities.
CPI secretary Faizi spoke in the same vein, but was a little harsher. He said, “If he (PM) feels so strongly that he has to report to Bush during the forthcoming G8 summit in Japan, he should vacate the office and need not go there.”
Faizi, however, left the issue of his successor to the Congress party. He said, “As far as his successor is concerned, that is for the Congress high command to decide. But our Prime Minister should not be a person subservient to the US”.
The CPM Politburo is meeting tomorrow to discuss the current political impasse over the nuclear deal. A party functionary said, “The central committee has already authorised the Politburo to take an appropriate action.
Next week, the CPI national executive will also meet to discuss the situation.
