The Communist Party of India-Marxist on Saturday said that the time has come for the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance leadership to "decide and tell people whether it would abide by the commitment to the US or to the Common Minimum Programme.

"In the CMP adopted by the UPA, there was not a word about strategic alliance with America. If that was put in the CMP, the Left parties would not have supported the government," said CPM General Secretary Prakash Karat, while addressing a public meeting at Visakhapatnam [Images] on Saturday.

He alleged that the government was deviating from the CMP and taking "step after step to get into strategic alliance with USA. Karat added that "this is not acceptable to Left parties."

Without giving any indication on the Left's strategy if the government goes ahead and operationalises the deal, Karat said "whatever takes place in future, we will not compromise on the independent foreign policy and our national interest."

Warning that "America will be able to blackmail India for 40 years" once the nuclear agreement was operationalised, he said it was part of US President George Bush's [Images] agenda to pressure New Delhi to open its markets to American companies.