A little over a week ago, sources said, the Prime Minister, who had undergone a prostate surgery recently, even contemplated cancelling his trip to Johannesburg for the Second IBSA Summit — he has reached Nigeria from where he will head to South Africa. The sources said it was felt that a wrong message would go out if the trip was called off. While this view did prevail, the fact remains that uncertainty has crept into the agenda. With the nuclear deal frozen due to domestic politics, there may be little weight in what Singh may try to tell Brazil and South Africa.

As per earlier plans, the PM was to make a pitch for India’s case for “unconditional exemption”, which meant no reference to testing or any other rider that may raise questions on India’s nuclear independence. But sources said that these countries, while remaining positive in their outlook, may not provide definitive answers, knowing well the hurdles the government faces at home.The only source of Manmohan Singh’s authority has been Sonia Gandhi’s absolute and continuous support. His role, however, was subtly defined — run the government, Sonia will manage the alliance. The first time this was breached was when the Prime Minister dared the Left to withdraw support if they wanted to.

In fact, there was wide support for the PM in the Congress when it all began — they all believed that the opinion within the CPM was divided, that the Left could not afford an election and would blink first.

Only two leaders, A K Antony and Pranab Mukherjee, advised caution. Having fought the Left as their principal opponent in their home states of Kerala and West Bengal, both had a different understanding of its functioning — which essentially meant that if at all any individual opinion counted in the CPM, it was the general secretary’s.

But in the days that followed, there were too many twists and turns and Congress colleagues and UPA allies began turning to Sonia Gandhi.

“It was Sonia Gandhi who built the alliance and made Singh the PM to run it. He had no authority to throw a challenge at the Left,” says a minister, ironically considered close to the PM.

The division of labour between Sonia and Singh never remained watertight. “Every conversation of an ally with the PM opened with the statement that we have spoken to Madam,” a source said.

While Sonia Gandhi repeatedly and publicly supported Singh, the feedback she was getting was not encouraging. For instance, Lalu Yadav took all his MPs for an interaction with Sonia Gandhi and all told her to avoid an election. Just two days before the U-turn, a large delegation of Congress leaders from Kerala — where the party expects to trounce the Left — told her that the party couldn’t expect Muslim support in the current environment and elections must be avoided.

While former MPs who crowded Parliament’s central hall cried for elections, virtually every Lok Sabha MP who got to meet her in the meantime pleaded that elections be avoided.

Sonia Gandhi’s strident speech at Jhajjhar in Haryana, calling opponents of the deal “enemies” of the the Congress and progress, triggered another crisis. She was speaking almost at the same time Pranab Mukherjee was speaking to Jyoti Basu on a formulation that would allow the government to negotiate, but not sign up with the IAEA.

With Mukherjee reacting furiously — apparently even throwing up his hands on the negotiations — Congress managers were making late-night calls to clarify that Sonia was not attacking the Left. The next day Karat and Yechury met Sonia — the first time since the UPA-Left committee was set up. After the meeting Sonia was sure that she could either lose both the deal and the government or lose only the deal.

She reportedly told senior Congress leaders the same evening: “I don’t think there is any confusion in the Left on the issue.” Though nothing has been officially said to the Left on delaying the deal, with the public statement of Sonia and PM, the indications are clear. The PM has chosen to act rationally rather than reacting in haste — because the deal could still be saved. “He is now convinced that convincing the Americans is much easier than convincing the Left. He has apparently, already worked out a new timeline with the US,” said a senior Congress leader.