Arati R Jerath

New Delhi: It’s not just Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who is viewed with suspicion in Left circles. Apparently, external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee is distrusted in almost equal measure.

In informal talks within the party, CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat is believed to have told his comrades to remember that it was Mukherjee who negotiated the framework defence agreement with the US. He said that no one in the government can be trusted.

The defence agreement is also a bone of contention between the Left and the Congress, along with the nuclear deal. The Left has objected to certain provisions under which US naval warships and planes can use Indian facilities during military operations in the region.

Although there was strong pressure from the Bengal unit of the CPI(M), led by Jyoti Basu, to accept the Mukherjee compromise formula, Karat refused to be swayed. He stuck to a strong ideological position, determined to take the CPI(M) away from the politics of compromise and back to its Marxist roots of anti-imperialism (read anti-US).

Karat seems to have smelt a trap in the formula floated by Mukherjee. His argument was that once the government went into talks with the IAEA, it could seek shelter behind the honour argument to seal the safeguards agreement. It could take the plea it is taking now that India would lose respect in the world community if it did not abide by its international commitments.