US-India Nuclear Deal On The Ropes?
Posted by K.E. White on September 13, 2007
India’s political parties all are playing games with the US-India nuclear deal. But it seems that the deal will pass, just after a extremely long period of posturing.
From the International Herald Tribune:
“We are only saying that don’t go now,” PTI quoted Karat as saying. “Wait for some time. Consider our objections and let Parliament opine on it.”
The piece states earlier:
The communist parties that support India’s ruling coalition again threatened to withdraw their support if the government rushes through a nuclear deal with the United States, a news report said Thursday.
“We won’t be there to help this government conclude this agreement,” the general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Prakash Karat, said at a conference in the Indian capital, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.
Karat also criticized the Congress party-led government’s “insistence” in going ahead with the deal and ignoring the views of its left-wing allies, upon which the government’s majority in the 545-seat Parliament depends.
Net-sum? The deal still seems headed for success, at least within India. But all the political parties in India’s multiparty parliamentary system jockeying for electoral success—delaying its passage.
