Congress declines to comment on Left's July 7 deadline
4 Jul 2008, 2145 Hrs

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New Delhi, July 4 (ANI): Rejecting the July 7 deadline set by Left parties on the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government to come clear on its stance on Indo-US civil nuclear deal, the Congress declined to clarify whether it was going ahead with the deal.

Instead, the Congress thanked the Samajwadi Party for extending its support to the nuclear deal.

Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi told presspersons here, "Sovereign Governments or political parties cannot be subjected to deadlines."

"We are working towards triple objectives - to do a nuclear deal in national interest, to carry along our allies with us for that purpose and to go to elections as per the Constitutional schedule," he added.

"We believe that the nuclear deal is in the national interest and are happy that other parties, in the national interest are slowly converging to our viewpoint," he said.

On being asked whether the bonhomie with the Samajwadi Party would extend to Uttar Pradesh, he said, "I need to emphasise that the current contextual developments are at the national level. I have said nothing at the regional level."

"However, once cooperation and convergence starts at the national level, it is not unnatural of it to assume wider proportions subsuming regional levels also," Singhvi said. Earlier, Samajwadi Party leaders Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amar Singh met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi to discuss the nuclear deal.

They did not say whether the two parties are coming together, and insisted that they had not given any commitment to the Prime Minister about extending support. (ANI)