New Delhi:Accusing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of "lying to people and Parliament" on Indo-US nuclear deal, the CPI(M) on Thursday demanded his resignation and said it would join hands with other parties to bring a no-confidence motion against his government.

"The only option left to them (UPA) is that the Prime Minister should quit. But neither will they convene Parliament session nor will they quit. .. It is a shameless government," party General Secretary Prakash Karat told reporters here.

He alleged the government has been "lying" to Parliament and people on the nature of the bilateral agreement reached with the US for civilian nuclear cooperation

"It is evident that the Indian government was fully aware that the fuel supply assurances did not cover a termination of the 123 agreement and they have deliberately misled the country," he said.

The Left parties, BSP, TDP, JD(S) and parties which opposed the deal would jointly meet President Pratibha Patil in the next couple of days to demand immediate convening of the monsoon session of Parliament.

"They are trying to even change the seasons of the country. Have you heard of monsoon in October?" he said referring to the governments decision to convene the next session from October 17.

Karat indicated that the government was trying its best not to allow tabling of a no-confidence motion, saying it had not prorogued the previous session so far and had only adjourned it sine die.

As per parliamentary norms, if a session is a continuation of the previous one, then the same motion cannot be brought in the House again. The opposition had brought a no-confidence motion in the budget session.

Karat said the CPI(M) had got the contents of the correspondence between the Bush administration and US Congress "two months ago and written about it" in the party organ Peoples Democracy.

"Normally, all such documents are made public, the US State Department had asked the lawmakers to keep these secret because public disclosure may torpedo the deal...

"The US Congress would not have liked to torpedo the deal as it was confined to (American) interests. ... But this was kept a secret because the US Administration wanted to protect the Indian government," he said.

The disclosures, the CPI(M) leader said, would have "exposed that the government had falsely told the Indian Parliament and the people that Hyde Act was not applicable to the deal."

Karat accused the government of knowing fully well about the nature of the deal and "asked them (US government) not to make it public. The Indian government was privy to the whole negotiations with all its conditionalities and constraints that we have been talking about for the past one and a half years."

He claimed the assurances given by the Prime Minister in Parliament had been "totally contrary" to the correspondence between US State Department and lawmakers

On the revised NSG draft for a waiver from NSG on sanctions on nuclear trade, he said it made it clear that the Hyde Act conditions would be built into this waiver and it would not be "clean or unconditional as the UPA government has led the country to believe".

Referring to the recent expose in the US media about the correspondence between the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the State Department, Karat said the termination clause in the 123 Agreement was "ombinus" and not just limited to India testing a nuclear weapon.

"It allows the US immediately stop all nuclear supplies as and when it wants. This is now confirmed by the answers (given to House Committee by the State Department).

"This means that the US can stop all supplies even on extraneous reasons such as Indias attitude to Iran. If India does not fall in line with the US on Iran, it could be construed to be a violation of the non-proliferation responsibilities and the US has the legal right under Article 14 to cease all cooperation," the CPI(M) leader said.

While the formal termination of the 123 Agreement was with a years notice, cessation of all supplies was "immediate and solely at the discretion of the US," he said, adding that Washington had also "not agreed" to India building up its strategic fuel reserves.

Maintaining that all these concerns had been raised at the meetings of the Left-UPA Committee on the nuclear deal, Karat said the UPA government was fully aware that fuel supply assurances did not cover the termination of the agreement

"The IAEA Safeguards are in perpetuity while the fuel supply assurances only cover market failures," he said.

Regarding transfer of technology, Karat said the correspondence made it clear that Washington would not give India access to technology for enrichment and reprocessing (Eamp;R), including heavy water production or dual use technology.

"This means India can import reactors and uranium but cannot access any technology that will help in either the fast breeder programme or the fuel cycle," Karat said.

Moreover, while it does not get access to such sensitive technology, it would open its fuel cycle and other such facilities for the civilian sector to "intrusive" IAEA safeguards, the CPI(M) leader said.

"This is nothing but a scheme designed to make India completely dependent on imported equipment and badly damage indigenous nuclear technology development," he said

Replying to questions, Karat said all this has to be explained by the Manmohan Singh government to the people and Parliament.

"Why are they afraid of Parliament? Why are they running away. When a serious situation had developed in Jammu and Kashmir, session should have been convened. But by not convening the session, the government has shown complete disregard and contempt for Parliament," he said.

To questions on Union Minister Kapil Sibals defence of the nuclear deal, he said "still the government thinks that they can fool the country through semantics. They did it during the (IAEA) Safeguards Agreement and now they are doing it with the process at the NSG meet."

Source : DNA