New Delhi: It could be more damaging than the Volcker report. If India votes against Iran at the IAEA meet scheduled for November 24, it could spell trouble for the UPA government.
The Left parties are threatening to give issue-based support to the UPA if they don?t revise their stand on Iran.
And the Left threatens to do it big. They claim they could force a vote on this in Parliament and vote against the government.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) had, on Monday, indicated they could "rethink" their support to the government if India did not abstain from voting at the IAEA meet.
The (CPI-M) extends outside support to the Manmohan Singh's government and wants India to remain neutral on the issue by abstaining from voting, instead of voting against Iran.
Senior CPI-M leader Sitaram Yechury said, "We are not ruling out the possiblity of forcing a vote on the issue, there?s already floor coordination with Samajwadi and JD(s).?
Yechury had, on Monday, send a strong signal to the UPA govt that it was deviating from the foreign policy issues as mentioned in the Common Minimum Programme and the (CPI (M)) had strong objections to it.
PRESSURE TACTIC OR REAL THREAT?
Sources say the CPI-M, the largest ally of the UPA is also not ruling out the possibility of moving from unconditional to issue based support if the government does not comply, while some in the Left are even talking of a total review of the support.
RSP leader Abani Roy, said, "There is no point of continuing the support at all. We will have to rethink on supporting the UPA then."
Yechury also did not deny the possibility of withdrawing its support from the coalition. The CPI-M together with the SP had 100 MPs in the ruling coalition.
If the situation comes to support withdrawal, the government will not last its term.
The Samajwadi Party and the Janata Dal (S) is with the Left on this and that adds up to 100 MLAs in all, that is, one fifth of the house
Yechury also said the CPI-M is trying to use all pressure tactics to make sure that India remained neutral on the vote in the IAEA.
Though, he agreed that they were in favour of the issue being settled within the ambit of IAEA without taking it to the UN Security Council.
Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav also accused the UPA government of meekly surrendering to the US on this issue and exhorted the people to be ready for a long battle including a Bharat Bandh.
Iran's case will be taken up at the Nov 24 meeting of the IAEA board of governors.
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