New Delhi

Nuclear deal or elections is the Congress leadership’s dilemma

NEW DELHI: ‘The nuclear deal or early elections’ were the tough options the Congress leadership was weighing a day after talks between the United Progressive Alliance and the Left parties failed to break the deadlock on the India-U.S. nuclear agreement.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s meeting on Thursday with Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia was seen as an attempt to gauge the impact of inflation and the trajectory it might take in the coming weeks. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee also had a brief interaction on the sidelines of a Union Cabinet meeting here.

A senior Congress leader who did not want to be named said the two sides were working on their findings on the nine meetings of the UPA-Left panel. The findings would then be presented to the Prime Minister who set up the panel. There is an attempt to ensure that if it comes to that, the parting of ways will not be acrimonious to the advantage of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The leader felt that the Left should be open to accepting the assurance given by the Prime Minister and the Defence Minister in Parliament that the government would take the sense of the House before operationalising the deal. “There cannot be any greater assurance than that and if the Left sees the benefits [of the deal] it may change its mind,” he opined.

In her meeting with Dr. Singh on Wednesday night after the UPA-Left panel meeting, Ms. Gandhi is understood to have assured him of her full backing on the deal. At the same time, she is learnt to have bought time to have wider consultations with the allies who are opposed to an early election which would be forced on the country if the government were to go ahead with the deal without the support of the Left parties. Otherwise Lok Sabha elections are scheduled for May 2009.

According to Congress sources, if the deal has to be saved the government will have to move quickly as the steps to be taken, before the U.S. Congress [that has to ratify the deal] convenes for a brief session in September in an election year, are time-bound. If everything is to move with clockwork precision in the international arena then the proposal on India-specific safeguards agreement could be put to the IAEA Board of Governors in its meeting on September 22. The procedure requires 45 days. To make it quicker, India may request for an early meeting of the Board by July 15, but that would be incumbent on its members such as the U.S., Russia, China and Pakistan, among others. Then to go to the Nuclear Suppliers Group will require another month and a half to catch the two-week September session of U.S. Congress for ratification, the sources point out.

However, if that does not happen then the “second window of opportunity” will be by November-end when the new U.S. Congress will take over. “But by then the new [U.S.] Congress may or may not accept the deal,” the sources said, adding that “our objective is to get the NSG waiver so that we can have international trade in energy material”. The sources pointed out that if the Left was to withdraw support and vote out the government, then as a caretaker, the Manmohan government would not be able to “complete” the N- deal.

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