Mistake to trust Congress: Karat

NDTV Correspondent
Friday, July 18, 2008 (New Delhi)
The CPM general secretary Prakash Karat has said it was a mistake to trust the Congress on the nuclear deal.Speaking to a newspaper Karat referred to the understanding between the Left and the government that it would not go to the IAEA without first clearing it with the UPA-Left coordination committee.He said: ''It was a mistake to believe in the word given by the Congress leadership which included the prime minister. On November 10, 2007, there had been a meeting in the PM's house where an understanding was arrived at.Speaking for the first time on the controversy involving Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee he said, ''All this talk of Speaker sans party and politics is hypocritical.''Karat said, ''By holding the post of the Speaker, a person does not cease to have political affiliations. After someone ceases to be a Speaker, they resume political activities.'' Karat however maintained that it was upto the Speaker to decide when to quit.The CPM General Secretary has also questioned the ethics of getting convicted MPs out of jail to ensure the government's survival in the trust vote.Karat said, ''I am reminded of the 1993 situation. Our party had moved a no-confidence motion against the Narasimha Rao government. The Congress government was in a minority then, just as now. But they managed a majority in the vote. This led to the well-known JMM bribery case. For the first time, a former PM and a former home minister were prosecuted. Let us hope, history does not repeat itself.''