IndiaPost.com - Nuke deal consensus process still on: PM

PRETORIA/NEW DELHI: Apparently not giving up hopes on persuading the Left on the Indo-US nuclear deal, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said here the process of evolving a "meaningful consensus" is still on.

"Well, the process of evolving a meaningful consensus is still on," Singh told a joint press conference at the end of the IBSA (India-Brazil-South Africa) Summit here. Singh was replying to a question posed to him as to how he would reconcile the political compulsions at home with the dialogue process involving Brazil and South Africa on their approach to cooperation in peaceful uses of nuclear energy under appropriate IAEA safeguards which was mentioned in the IBSA declaration released today.

Meanwhile, in New Delhi, the Congress has declared that the Indo-US nuclear deal was "not in cold storage." If need be there could be more meetings of the UPA-Left Committee after October 22 to "narrow down the differences", it said. The party also dismissed as "speculation" that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is contemplating to resign, "hurt" by the behavior of the allies on the nuclear deal issue.

"The deal is not in cold storage and is very much on (rpt) on," AICC spokesperson Shakeel Ahmed said at the party briefing. Asked about "certain difficulties" about which the Prime Minister has spoken to US President George W Bush, Ahmed said "it is not correct to say that the deal has been put on hold or put on the back-burner."

Replying to a question on whether the Prime Minister was contemplating resignation, he said Singh has full confidence of all the allies and there was no question of either him or the Government resigning.

"I am saying this with full responsibility," Ahmed said. Dismissing suggestions that Singh has become a "lame-duck" Prime Minister, he said, "he is as competent and as powerful as when he took over the high office."