Top sources in the government said the Left's haste in withdrawing support before the July 10 meeting of the UPA-Left meeting on the Indo-US nuclear deal has come as no surprise.
In fact, all these eventualities were discussed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with President Pratibha Patil when he met her before leaving for Japan.
"The prime minister will in all probability waste no time in writing to the IAEA asking it to consider the India-specific safeguards agreement. The formal approach, with the draft agreement in hand, will of course be done after the government, in a special session of Parliament, moves and wins the vote of confidence," said a source.
The prime minister will meet all key members of the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG) at the G-8 summit and ask for their support for the Indo-US civil nuclear agreement. "All that will be sewn up before he returns to India," said a top source.
The government has had no formal communication from the IAEA on the date it will convene a meeting of its board of governors. While news agencies have mentioned July 28, it could be earlier as well.
"Therefore the prime minister wants to get things done well in time, including approaching the IAEA, and more importantly, the confidence vote," said the source.
PTI reports: India has expressed confidence that there will be no "difficulty" from the Chinese side when New Delhi's case goes before the NSG. After a meeting between the prime minister and Chinese President Hu Jintao on the sidelines of the G-8 summit, Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said, "The Chinese side expressed its willingness to cooperate with India in civil use of the nuclear energy."
The BJP's prime ministerial candidate, LK Advani, said a minority government did not have the moral or political legitimacy to sign the nuclear deal.
"Once a government is reduced to a minority government, it simply does not have either the political or moral legitimacy to go ahead with a major international agreement, especially when the very cause of the government losing its majority is the sharp difference between the ruling coalition and the supporting parties over the deal," Advani said.
