Date:13/07/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/07/13/stories/2008071359380500.htm

Andhra Pradesh

Nuke deal: Naidu urged to visit Delhi

D. Chandra Bhaskar Rao

Telugu Desam to coordinate with Left parties in opposing agreement

— Photo: G. N. Rao

CHALKING OUT PLANS: Telugu Desam president N. Chandrababu Naidu addressing the media along with senior party leaders at Gangaram village near Sathupalli on Saturday.

SATHUPALLI (Khammam dist): The Telugu Desam Party has decided to work in coordination with the Left parties in opposing the Indo-American civilian nuclear agreement.

A meeting of the TDP Polit Bureau held here on Saturday urged party president N. Chandrababu Naidu to take time off from his ongoing “Mee Kosam” yatra and visit New Delhi again to coordinate with the UNPA constituents and the Left parties in seeing that the nuclear deal is not clinched.

Briefing news persons later, Mr. Naidu said the nuclear deal lacked sanctity. He said that if it was genuinely in the interests of the nation, there was no harm in deferring it by a few months.

The Manmohan Singh government as well as the Bush administration were on their way out and it was best left to their successors to handle the issue.

Mr. Naidu said he apprehended that the Congress leadership might resort to horse trading to win the confidence vote in Parliament. It would not hesitate even to bribe political parties for the sake of the deal. He said that the Congress government had failed to take the Left parties, that supported it for so long, into confidence on the issue. It was not introduced in the Parliament and the country was kept in the dark.

The Polit Bureau appointed a three-member panel to monitor the party’s campaign on peasant-related issues. It will consist of Telugu Rythu president Ch. Muthyam Reddy, K. E. Krishnamurthy and Ummareddi Venkateswarlu. The panel will also deal with issues of SEZs and corruption in execution of irrigation projects.

Mr. Naidu said the peasant community was in crisis due to scanty rainfall, power cuts and shortage of fertilizers and seeds. The government had failed to control the prices while inflation had touched 11.9 per cent.

He parried questions on the replacement for Mr. T. Devender Goud in the core committee on Telangana. However, sources said, he would announce the names of two general secretaries and a member of the core committee on Sunday.