The PM said efforts are on to “reconcile divergent points of view” over the nuclear deal with the Left parties and hoped that “reason and common sense” will prevail. “I have not given up hope”.

Asked on the possible dent in his personal prestige if the deal fell through, the PM shot back. “We are not a one-issue government... If the deal does not come through, it will be a disappointment. But in life, one has to live with certain disappointments and move on...Having said that, I do attach importance to seeing this deal through but if the deal is not through it’s not the end of life.”

Asked if he regretted his statement that dared the Left to withdraw support to the government, the PM said: “I don’t think I have overstepped... I was responding to a public statement by the four Left parties. I am conscious of my responsibilities, what I should say and what I should not say.” “No, I was appealing to their good sense,” he said, denying suggestions that it was meant to provoke the Left.

However, the PM clearly outlined his commitment to the nuclear deal. “In politics, we must survive short term battles to address long term concerns.” “We cannot assume that the country and the economy will move forward on their own while we dissipate our energies in meaningless controversies,” the PM said adding that if the entire time and energy was spent “battling the ghosts of the past”, the “vast unfinished agenda of development and reform” cannot be achieved. “No static ideology can freeze or straitjacket the creativity, the enterprise and the imagination of our people,” the PM said.

... contd.