NEW DELHI, MARCH 2 At 1 pm today when CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat released a bunch of balloons with “Bush Go Back” written on them, perhaps hoping they would sail over nearby Hyderabad House, one reason for holding the maha rally against the US President’s visit had already been lost—the nuclear deal had been clinched.

Those on the dais—leaders from the Left, the Samajwadi Party and JD(S)—did not know it then. They had just reached Parliament Street after leading an anti-Bush march from Ramlila grounds. “Hyderabad House is 2 km away,” Karat was telling the assembled crowd. “The Prime Minister and the US President are holding talks there. We don’t know what they are talking about. Is it the nuclear deal? Is it agriculture issues? They want to bring US money into banking and insurance.”

It was left to journalists to tell the protesters, who had been mobilised in hundreds, about the nuclear agreement between India and the US.

But that was after Karat, the first speaker, had finished blaming Bush for “people’s ills” as well as “farmers’ suicides”, urging that he be declared a “war criminal for the deaths in Iraq”, and warning the UPA Government not to ignore the “people’s will”.

Calling Bush “haivan”, Karat mocked at the US President for his address from Purana Qila and not having “the courage to enter Parliament”.

Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, however, went after the Congress and the PM. “Whoever opposes the Congress will be destroyed... Look at the way I was thrown out of my (official) bungalow (in Delhi). I told the Prime Minister about this, but he said I would have to leave. It was getting disgusting, so when I told him (the PM) I had decided to vacate it, all he said was ‘Thank you’, ” Yadav said.

Though he did mention US action in Iraq and Afghanistan, it was left to CPI’s A B Bardhan to make an appeal for discipline. “There is no doubt that there are issues concerning states, and there are problems with the UPA. Mulayamji is emotional about his problems. We will discuss them too, but later,” he said. CPI(ML) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharyya claimed that India was being virtually “beaten into taking a leadership role in South Asia with US backing”, on the lines of Israel’s position in West Asia.