While virtually setting a pre-condition that his party’s support would be for a coalition which can annul the nuclear deal, the CPI(M) top boss also admitted that his quest for cobbling up a third alternative will not materialise before the next elections and the CPI(M) was instead looking for an electoral alternative.

“The struggle to rescind or reverse this agreement is not over. If this Government goes ahead with the deal, with the next government, obviously it cannot be a Congress-led government, our goal will be to see that it takes the step of terminating the 123 Agreement,” he said after the two-day meeting of the Politburo.

Asked if this meant the CPI(M) would support the BJP, which has already announced that it will renegotiate the deal if it comes to power, Karat said his party’s line was to defeat the “communal” BJP and oppose the Congress and it will work towards forming an electoral alternative to both these parties.

Asked how he was so confident that the Congress would not return to power, the CPI(M) general secretary said: “We will work for it...Our political battle is here and not in Vienna or Washington.”

The Poliburo, which met for the first time after the Left withdrew support to the UPA Government, decided to look into options of entering into electoral understandings with parties on a state-to-state basis besides discussing the Singur controversy and other issues. “We believe that the third alternative should emerge through joint activities and struggles on policies and programmes bringing together various forces. But our work could not be done. Elections are coming soon. So we are working for a immediate electoral alternative keeping in view the Lok Sabha elections,” he said.

On India securing the NSG waiver, he said the CPI(M)’s basic opposition was to the 123 Agreement with the US and the IAEA Safeguards Agreement and the NSG waiver were only steps to operationalise the agreement. He said the waiver was neither unconditional nor clean as claimed by the Government and was in conformity with the Hyde Act.

“The waiver has converted the voluntary moratorium on testing into a multilateral commitment. India has now agreed that any fuel supply agreement will be subject to periodic NSG review and subject to India’s moratorium on testing,” he said.

Karat said while India becomes a part of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty regime, which it has been describing as discriminatory for long, the restrictions on transfer of sensitive technologies would continue and there are no fuel supply assurances as claimed by the Government. “Similarly, India has also agreed to abide by an Additional Protocol with the IAEA that is yet to be even finalised, let alone signed, as part of the basis for the waiver. It is yet another step of surrender in the journey towards total surrender by operationalising the 123 Agreement,” he added.