With National Security Advisor M K Narayanan back in the capital on Monday from his last week’s mission to Washington to clinch the nuclear deal, the Manmohan Singh government has set in motion the process of securing wider endorsement for the deal.

The prime minister has convened a meeting of his Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs (CCPA) on Wednesday to brief his UPA allies on the draft Indo-US civil nuclear cooperation agreement, finalised by top negotiators from the two sides in Washington last Thursday.

The CCPA has ministers representing all major UPA coalition partners. Narayanan, who headed the negotiating team to Washington and Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon would be briefing the CCPA, said sources.

Key aspects
Ahead of the meeting, the National Security Advisor briefed the prime minister on Tuesday in detail on various key aspects of the final draft agreement, known also as “123 agreement”. There are indications are that the draft would be considered by the Cabinet Committee on Security on Thursday.

The two meetings are also expected to discuss the government’s strategy for a discussion on the issue in Parliament during the monsoon session that gets underway from August 10.

 The Left partners of the UPA, who in public have raised questions about the deal in public, have demanded a detailed parliamentary discussion.

But well before the start of the session, the government has planned to sell the deal to the sceptics to win them over.

Even before possible discussions that the prime minister might initiate, Mr Menon and Mr Narayanan would brief political leaders on the deal.

Mr Menon was even expected to meet top BJP leaders to explain finer details of the deal with respect to such contentious issues as reprocessing rights, uninterrupted fuel supplies and fall-back safeguards. The top two officials would do the same for the Left leaders.

Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Dr Anil Kakodkar and his deputy in the Department of Atomic Energy Dr R B Grover are likely to sell the deal to leading nuclear scientists who, over the last one year, had publicly expressed serious concerns over several key aspects of the deal, when it was under negotiation.

Both Dr Kakodkar and Dr Grover were part of the Narayanan-led negotiating team that went to Washington.
The government is confident that the deal would win the endorsement of its critics as, according to them, it conforms to the Prime Minister’s suo motu statement in Parliament on August 6 last year in respect of all the contentious issues.

The leaderships of the Left and BJP as well as leading nuclear scientists have insisted that the deal should be within the confines of the commitment made by Dr Singh in Parliament.