New Delhi, Dec. 8: The Left allowed the UPA government to start India-specific safeguards talks with the IAEA because it did not want to de-stabilise the Centre before the Gujarat elections, Prakash Karat said today.

According to sources, the CPM general secretary told the Delhi party conference “we didn’t want the government to fall before the Gujarat elections” as it would have benefited the BJP.

This is the first time Karat has referred to the Gujarat elections as the reason behind the Left’s decision to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency talks.

The CPM leader, however, made it clear that the Left would never allow the government to go ahead with the Indo-US nuclear deal.

“Let them discuss with the IAEA. We will not allow the government to go ahead with the deal,” Karat reportedly told the delegates at the closed-door meeting on the first day of the two-day conference.

He added: “History will not forgive us if we allow a Left-backed government to operationalise the deal and make India a subordinate ally of the United States.”

The Left’s decision to allow the IAEA talks — after having asked the government not to take the next step to operationalise the nuclear deal — was being seen as a softening of its stand on the agreement.

Left leaders had earlier said they decided to change their stand and allow the talks only after they got a specific assurance that the government would return to the UPA-Left committee after consultations with the IAEA without signing a safeguards agreement.

They had also denied any “climbdown” from the Left’s stand on the nuclear deal.

The CPM general secretary’s assertion assumes significance also because he has for the first time made it clear that the fall of the government would become imminent the moment it goes ahead with the nuclear deal.