PM in the people’s dock

The editorial accuses Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of violating many of the assurances given by him in Parliament on the nuclear deal and says such a betrayal of trust by the PM has serious consequences, both for India’s future as an independent nation in the world and for the future of India’s parliamentary democracy itself. “In the final analysis, the executive (government), whose head is the prime minister, is answerable and accountable to the legislature. The negation of this accountability is the negation of the Indian constitutional scheme of things,” it says.

Claiming that many of the nine assurances that the PM had given in Parliament were systematically violated in the run up to finalising the deal, it says in the bargain, India ends up being tied to US imperialism’s global strategy impinging severely on our independent foreign policy and sovereignty. “The issue, thus, is not one of accepting the CPI(M)’s or the Left’s critique of this deal as being against the fundamental interests of India and reducing India into a subordinate ally of US imperialism. The issue is whether the prime minister of India will remain loyal to his own assurances to his own people made in the Indian parliament?...... “What we are asking is simply this: the prime minister must stand by his own assurances to the parliament. Otherwise, as he is fond of repeatedly stating in the parliament, history shall judge him. Prior to that, however, the Indian people shall surely do so,” it says.

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