N-deal fate may become clear today

A crucial meeting of the UPA-Left committee on the Indo-US nuclear deal will be held on Monday with the outside allies of the government demanding a clear statement that the deal is off.

The meeting, to be chaired by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, may be the last of a series of meetings already conducted on the apprehensions of the Left parties over the deal as it comes after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's statement last week that the deal may not be the end of life.

Singh, though, has not publicly cleared his stance on the deal.

CPI (M) Politburo member Sitaram Yechury said the Left parties were expecting the government's final stand on the nuclear deal to be announced at the meeting.

"We do not know what exactly the UPA will tell us. But what we expect is that they should clearly say that the deal is off or that it has been put on hold. Only then will the controversy end," CPI General Secretary A B Bardhan told PTI.

Striking an ominous note, he said that if the government was not a single-issue government, "then they should not make it the sole issue for deciding the fate of the government." The Congress, leading the coalition, is, however, singing a different tune, maintaining that the deal was still "alive".

Singh has said that there are "some difficulties. We are working in a coalition. We have to find a way out and I have not given up hope."