Stepping up pressure on the United Progressive Alliance government over its support to the International Atomic Energy Association resolution against Iran, left parties, Samajwadi Party and Janata Dal (Secular) on Monday decided to launch a nationwide campaign to make them pursue the independent foreign policy as envisaged in the Common Minimum Programme and reverse its stand on Iran. "Whenever there will be a deviation from the CMP, whether on the economic or foreign policy front, we will mount pressure," Communist Party of India (Marxist) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury told reporters after a meeting on the controversial Iran nuclear issue in New Delhi.
He and CPI General Secretary A B Bardhan said the parties had decided to organise a seminar on October 28 and a convention on October 29 to pressurise the government follow an independent foreign policy as laid out in the CMP and reverse its vote against Iran.
The meeting also set up a 14-member committee including former Secretaries in the government, journalists and political leaders on these issues. The panel would meet again on October 20. "We will broad base this campaign and invite all UPA coalition partners, besides other foreign policy experts and individuals, to participate," Yechury said after the meeting which was also attended among others by Ram Gopal Yadav (SP), Surendra Mohan and Danish Ali (JD-S).
Besides Yechury and Bardhan, the Committee includes Justice V R Krishna Iyer, Amar Singh and Yadav (SP), Prakash Karat (CPI-M), former Secretary in the government S P Shukla, former Indian Foreign Service officer M K Bhadra Kumar, journalist Seema Mustafa and Left leaders.
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