Govt woos Samajwadi Party

The government tried to woo the Samajwadi Party on Wednesday and secure a parliamentary majority amid signs its communist allies would withdraw their support to protest a nuclear deal with the United States. National security advisor MK Narayanan is due to meet leaders of SP later on Wednesday to persuade to back the civilian nuclear deal, seen as a landmark accord moving India’s trade and diplomatic relations closer to the West. Left parties have given the Congress-led ruling coalition a parliamentary majority over the past four years. But they say they will withdraw support if the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, moves ahead with a deal that they say makes India a Washington pawn. If they withdraw, the government needs the support of the SP, a socialist party in Uttar Pradesh with strong support from Muslims, to avoid losing a vote of confidence in parliament and facing an early election later this year. Fearful that the fall of the government could open the way to power for the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, the SP has hinted it is willing to negotiate with the centre-left Congress. ‘We always aim to keep the communal forces (the Hindu-nationalist opposition) at bay,’ SP head Mulayam Singh said on Tuesday night. ‘For that there are no political untouchables for us.’ The SP has 39 seats, compared with 59 seats for the communist parties, in the national parliament. The Congress-led ruling coalition needs the support of 44 lawmakers to reach a majority and it hopes to also win support from a few smaller parties. The government wants to avoid an early election, worried that 13-year-high inflation and signs of an economic slowdown will destroy its chances of re-election. It would prefer polls on schedule in May 2009, which would give it time to slow the rise in consumer prices that have stoked voter anger against the government. The government faces a series of other problems, including an indefinite strike from Wednesday by millions truckers to protest rising fuel prices, and violent protests by Muslims and Hindus in Indian Kashmir over a religious land dispute. On Tuesday, Indian shares fell 3.7 per cent as a cocktail of high oil prices, inflation and political uncertainty took its toll, with investors worried that months of coalition-building and electioneering could lead to weak economic leadership. In mid-trading on Wednesday, stocks were up 1.5 per cent. The four left parties that prop up the government will hold a meeting on Friday to discuss the prime minister’s trip to a G8 summit next week in Japan. For the communists, his trip could symbolise a decision to move ahead with one of his most important diplomatic policies and for which he shook hands with the president, George W Bush, at the White House in 2005. The pact, which gives India access to US nuclear fuel and technology, is potentially worth billions of dollars to US and European nuclear supplier companies and would give India more energy alternatives to drive its booming, trillion-dollar economy.