IndiaPost.com - Mulayam Singh set to

NEW DELHI: Tottering over the threat of pullout by 59-member Left parties, India's Manmohan Singh govt heaved a sigh of relief with UP's Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav offering to shore it up.

Yadav and Amar Singh met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi to discuss the nuclear deal, making way for the UPA govt to clinch the Nuclear deal comfortably. After their 30-minute meeting with the Prime Minister, Yadav and Amar Singh appeared convinced that the nuclear deal is in the interest of the country and said they would try to convince other UNPA constituents on the issue.

The SP leaders said former President A P J Abdul Kalam had elaborately explained to them the benefits of the deal and allayed fears about the national sovereignty or foreign policy being compromised. "We have been opposing it (nuclear deal) as we did not have any new details. But now these new details have come," Yadav told reporters.

Earlier, Former President and scientist A P J Abdul Kalam told the Samajwadi Party leaders that the Indo-US nuclear deal was beneficial for the country and they should keep national interest above politics while firming up their stand on the issue. After more than an hour-long meeting with Kalam, Yadav told reporters that the former President told them that "the deal is in national interest".

"We will inform UNPA leaders about our discussions with Kalam who is a well known and respected scientist. He is the father of nuclear technology of the country", the SP supremo said. Yadav and Singh put forth before Kalam the statement issued by the Prime Minister's Office seeking to address concerns that the Samajwadi Party had articulated before National Security Advisor M K Narayanan.

"He read it and said the country's interest is bigger than politics and political parties," Singh said as he hailed the former president as a great scientist who has been honored with Bharat Ratna, the country's highest civilian award. Kalam told them that "I am not in politics but I have worked with nuclear weapon technology for a long time, country needs clean nuclear energy".

With regards to apprehension over India's right to conduct nuclear tests after the deal comes into operation, the former president told them "if other neighboring countries like Pakistan and China make nuclear weapons, we will not be bound to the extent that we cannot scrap the deal for the sake of nation." On concerns over nuclear sovereignty, Kalam told them India had conducted five nuclear blasts and does not need to carry out tests again and again.

"We are a nuclear weapon state and we don't need to behave like any other country. In fact, we should have been in the NSG as a nuclear weapon state. Kalam said NSG is a grouping of 45 countries and not US alone and till we develop thorium-based plants, any one of these particular countries can supply uranium to us," Singh said.