“When they (officials) come back from talks with IAEA, we will tell them (government) there is no need to go ahead with the deal). The issue must be resolved by end of December. If they still go ahead, then we will have to be prepared for Lok Sabha mid-term polls,” Karat was quoted by sources as having told a Delhi state CPM meeting yesterday.

As reported by The Sunday Express, an Indian team left for Vienna last night to resume talks with the IAEA.

Karat said the CPM allowed the government to go for the IAEA talks because of the Gujarat elections. His reasoning: the Left parties did not want the government to fall before the Gujarat elections lest the BJP benefited from it. “You may not be worried but we are. We don’t want the BJP to win the polls. We have to defeat the Modi government so we don’t want to disturb the situation now,” sources quoted him as saying.

Karat’s colleague Sitaram Yechury, however, said today that the CPM agenda was not to destabilise the government but to stop the nuclear deal. “We have been opposed to the nuclear deal because it has increased India’s vulnerability to US pressures in various fields, particularly independent foreign policy,” Yechury told PTI from Bhavnagar in Gujarat where he is campaigning for the polls. “Our agenda is to stop that and not to destabilise the government,” he said.

While the Congress downplayed Karat’s threat — party spokesman Abhishek Singhvi said “whatever is being negotiated is as per the understanding reached in the coordination committee meetings of the Left and the UPA and after full engagement with the Left” — the BJP dared the CPM to “show courage” and withdraw support to the government. “If Prakash Karat is so serious, let him show the courage and withdraw support. He lacks courage,” said BJP’s Ravi Shankar Prasad.

Though Karat has been sticking to his hardline stance that the government will face the “consequence” if it goes ahead with operationalisation of the deal, this is the first time that he has clearly mentioned mid-term elections. He made it clear at the party meeting that there was “no change” in the party’s stand on the issue and “there is no going back.”

“History will not forgive us if we allow a Left-backed government to operationalise the deal and make India a subordinate ally of the United States,” he reportedly told the party meeting which was not open to the media.

The second round of talks in Vienna comes after the IAEA studied India’s proposals and conveyed this week that it was willing to hold talks along those lines. India wants its safeguards agreement to reflect fuel supplies assurances, the right to build a strategic fuel reserve for the lifetime of India’s reactors besides acknowledging the Separation Plan.