The Congress, meanwhile, launched a scathing attack on the Left calling it “impulsive” for “shooting off” a letter to Mukherjee and making it public even before it reached him. “It smacks of lack of courtesy. Are they (Left) driven by desperation? Are they frustrated?” AICC media cell chairperson M Veerappa Moily told reporters here.

The Left meeting discussed the SP’s “opportunistic crossover” and the timing of the withdrawal. Both the RSP and Forward Bloc argued that the support should be withdrawn immediately as there was no point in waiting since the Government and the Congress leadership were giving enough indications that they were going ahead with the deal.

But the CPM and CPI leaders prevailed over them and instead decided to ask the Government to spell out its plan. The letter was dispatched as the meeting was underway.

With the crisis over the nuclear deal dominating the political discourse, the Left today also decided to include the Government’s “anti-people policies”, “refusal to take appropriate measures to tackle the runway inflation and backbreaking prices” in their agitation agenda in a bid to deflect attention from the deal to avert a possible middle-class backlash.