'PM provoked Left by calling Atal Bhishm'

THE DEAL MAKER: The PM is the Government as far as the nuclear deal is concerned, says Bardhan.

          

Featured Blog

Rajdeep Sardesai

Maharaj or Dada, Ganguly's legacy lives on

Featured Slideshows

A B Bardhan: It is a new lesson in politics.

Karan Thapar: It is a lesson in how you help yourself by being clever.

A B Bardhan: It is a new lesson in politics in diplomacy that you are suggesting.

Karan Thapar: Let us now take up your threat to withdraw support. The problem is that at least four times in the last four years, you personally have made such threats but not lived up to them. So how can you convince me that this time around it’s more serious?

A B Bardhan: No but you are forgetting one thing – what we said, the Government did not proceed ahead. We said if you proceed, we will have to withdraw support. They have not proceeded.

Karan Thapar: Let me quote some of the threats that you bandied at the Government and which you then forgot about very conveniently. In Chandigarh, in March 2005, “We support you only on the basis of the Common Minimum Programme. If you deviate, a situation will arise when we will say goodbye”. You accused them of deviating at least 20 times since 2005, but no bye-byes have been said.

A B Bardhan: That was not about the nuclear deal alone. That was about the Common Minimum Programme and the violation of the programme.

Karan Thapar: And you keep saying that they violate it everyday, you say, in fact, that they haven’t fulfilled it at all.

A B Bardhan: No, that will be one-sided. After all, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, the right of tribals to the forest…

Karan Thapar: So you’ve suddenly found reasons for changing your position.

A B Bardhan: No, the Right to Information Act…

Karan Thapar: Can I quote to you what you said in April 2007? You said, “I feel a time will come very soon when the Left would introspect and review their support and part company.” The time will come very soon? We’re a year away! You haven’t parted company, you’re constantly making threats.

A B Bardhan: Nothing has happened.

Karan Thapar: Because you backed off every time!

A B Bardhan: They have not gone ahead.

Karan Thapar: Well, actually…

A B Bardhan: Even today I think that they are not going ahead.

Karan Thapar: Well, that’s another matter.

A B Bardhan: They may not go ahead.

Karan Thapar: ‘May not’, ‘will not’, let’s leave that for time to tell.

A B Bardhan: If they go, we will be there.

Karan Thapar: This is it – will you be there? Let’s take up specifically how the Left has behaved over the nuclear deal. When Hyde Act was passed by US Congress, you said immediately in December 2006, ‘don’t negotiate the 1-2-3!’ The Government did, you kept quiet, you accepted it. Then, when the 1-2-3 was negotiated, you immediately said, don’t go to the IAEA. They twisted your arm, you agreed, they went to the IAEA. Now they’ve come back from the IAEA, you’re saying don’t pursue the deal. I bet they’ll twist your arm again and I know you will find a way of letting them go.