N-deal committee will be apolitical: CPI

Urging the Centre to constitute the committee to look into the Left Front's concerns about the India-United States nuclear deal at the earliest, the Communist Party of India has said that the committee will be apolitical in nature.

Experts, scientists and economists could be invited to gather their views on the nuclear deal, CPI National Secretary D Raja said in Puducherry on Monday. The CPI leader added that his party was hopeful of a positive outcome from the discussions of the proposed committee.

Raja said that the Left Front was prepared to wait till the committee finished discussing the matter, as the Centre had agreed to look into 'certain concerns' raised by its allies.

Stating that the Left parties were for a 'world without nuclear weapons', he asked the United States to come forward with a Universal Nuclear Disarmament Agreement.

Raja said that the 123 agreement should not be seen in isolation but should be viewed in its entirety, as it indicated an emerging strategic partnership between the US and India and deepening military cooperation between the two countries.

The CPI leader emphasised that India should decide its own policies and not be dictated by any external force. Raja also accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of adopting a 'double stand' on the nuclear issue. He claimed that the party was going through a 'moral crisis' as the previous BJP-led National Democratic Alliance regime had entered into a strategic partnership with the US.

Raja also demanded that Indian Ambassador to the US Ronen Sen be recalled for making remarks against those opposing the nuclear deal.

"The ambassador should have known what he was talking about," he said.

Raja said that the left parties were organising protests across the country against India's joint military exercises with Japan, Australia and the US. Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Prakash Karat, leaders of the Revolutionary Socialist Party and Forward Bloc will join him in a procession in Chennai on Tuesday to register their protest against the joint military exercises.