A day after the UPA won the trust vote, the Left parties on Wednesday said the victory was not a mandate for going ahead with the Indo-US nuclear deal as the “moral authority” of the Government has been “compromised” by securing majority through “bribery, intimidation and horse-trading”.

The parties, which made an unsuccessful bid to bring down the Government on the issue of the deal, met here to take stock of the situation and decided to go on a campaign mode anticipating early general elections despite Manmohan Singh winning the confidence vote.

“The Manmohan Singh Government has won the vote of confidence in the Lok Sabha but the entire country has witnessed how parliamentary democracy has been subverted. Reports of bribery, intimidation and horse-trading have been proved by cross-voting and abstentions engineered by the Congress and the Samajwadi Party,” the Left parties said.

While the threat of early elections has been averted with the Government winning the vote, the Left calculation is that the contradictions between the Congress and its new-found friend, the SP, would erupt in one form or the other soon, and there will be elections by November this year.

Left leaders said the Congress leadership was mistaken if it considered the vote as one that has provided legitimacy to the Government as majority was ensured through bribery, intimidation and horse-trading.

“The moral authority of the Government has been compromised. The debate in the Lok Sabha has shown up the sharp division on the nuclear deal. This is no mandate for going ahead with the deal,” they said while noting that the campaign against the Agreement will continue.

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