Today, the three parties are engaged in a strategic game to determine India’s nuclear future. Let us look at the stakes of the three parties and their options. The communists either clear the finalisation of the IAEA agreement in the May 28 meeting or announce the withdrawal of their support and maintain their opposition to furthering the deal. They may also try to extend the negotiations, to strangulate the deal through delays.

The Congress may go along with the Left parties to retain their support for a few more months and not pursue the finalisation of the IAEA agreement and let it slip. Thereby the Congress will become the target of the BJP’s election propaganda that it was really the Left that was ruling the country, using the Congress as surrogate and that India’s entire nuclear future has been sacrificed to accommodate the Left. Or the Congress can part company with the Left and go ahead with the IAEA safeguards finalisation. All that will mean, at worst, is the elections being advanced to November. The Congress will have to weigh the costs and benefits of staying for five or six months more in office and getting attacked during the election campaign for having sacrificed India’s nuclear future and having been a surrogate of the communist ummah with its loyalty to Beijing.

At the present stage in the game, the BJP has maximum flexibility. It can continue its present opposition to the nuclear deal and earn the reputation of having contributed to the Indian nuclear programme being wound down and share that responsibility with the Congress and the communists. Alternatively, it can announce that it supports the deal and would like the Congress to complete it. That would be rising to the level of Narasimha Rao, in commitment to national interest. Rao urged Vajpayee to conduct the nuclear tests without worrying about the credit going to him.

... contd.