Date:05/09/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/09/05/stories/2007090562781400.htm

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Tilt towards the U.S. is against India’s independent foreign policy, says Basu

Special Correspondent

Centre must face the consequences if it operationalises the nuclear deal: Bardhan

PHOTO: PTI

In protest: Left Front chairman Biman Bose (right) hands over a flag to the former West Bengal Chief Minister, Jyoti Basu, at a rally in Kolkata on Tuesday. Communist Party of India general secretary A.B. Bardhan is at left. —

Kolkata: Flagging off the “jatha” by Left leaders and workers headed for Visakhapatnam to protest against the joint naval exercises in the Bay of Bengal, involving the U.S. and other countries, veteran Marxist leader, Jyoti Basu, said here on Tuesday that the “jatha” was “against both U.S. imperialism and the Centre.”

Mr. Basu cautioned the United Progressive Alliance government against “taking the country into the American fold which goes against the Common Minimum Programme.”

“This tilt towards the U.S. is against India’s independent foreign policy,” he said, addressing a gathering at the start of the “jatha.”

“I hope that the people of the country realise the danger of such joint exercises and extend their support to the jatha,” Mr. Basu said.

General secretary of the Communist Party of India A.B. Bardhan, who led the “jatha” from the city, said the Centre must face the consequences if it went ahead with operationalising the nuclear deal despite the reservations of the Left parties.

The U.S. was implementing in stages its plans to bring India into a strategic alliance through the joint military, naval and air exercises, Mr. Bardhan said. “As an independent country we cannot tolerate interference with our foreign policy priorities,” he said. “I do not know what will happen in the committee [being set up by the Centre to look into various aspects of the 123 agreement that the Left parties are opposed to]. If the government wants discussions on the questions being raised by us [the Left] we are willing to do so and it is with this in mind that we are joining the committee,” Mr. Bardhan said.

The Left leadership has made it clear that the nuclear deal cannot be looked at in isolation but as a part of a grand strategic alliance in the making with the U.S., of which the joint naval exercise in the Bay of Bengal is only a component.

Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s West Bengal State committee, Biman Bose, was among the senior members of the “jatha” that left the city in two buses carrying nearly 90 volunteers. He will be a part of it till Bhubaneshwar.

The “jatha” will be joined at Visakhapatnam by another organised by the Left parties originating from Chennai on September 8.