The Prime Minister’s Office is learnt to have sent out invitations for Sunday’s dinner at 7, Race Course Road to “over 272 MPs” and officials said more are on their way. That may reflect enduring hope in the ruling camp to win the July 22 trust vote but the UPA’s crisis managers have their task cut out.

At a time when every MP secured is being seen as one giant step forward towards saving the government and the nuclear deal — or the other way around, looking through the Opposition’s eyes — Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s conversation with JD(S) chief H D Deve Gowda brought more than a flicker of hope to the UPA. Deve Gowda is set to meet Singh tomorrow.

While two JD(S) MPs are significant in terms of numbers for a precariously placed UPA, Gowda’s decision, Congress leaders claim, would have a “positive cascading” effect on the other fence-sitters — about a dozen of them including JMM, RLD, MNF, and Independents.

The Congress is also in touch with JMM chief Shibu Soren. While the ruling camp is learnt to have agreed to give him a Cabinet berth, sources said he was adamant on getting an additional portfolio of a Minister of State for his party.

The Samajwadi Party, the most vulnerable bloc in the alliance, is working hard to keep its flock together. At its meeting today, 10 of the 39 MPs, which included Beni Prasad Verma, Raj Babbar, Atiq Ahmed, Afzal Ansari, Saleem Sherwani, Usha Verma, S Bangarappa, Jaiprakash, Rajnarain Budhaulia, and Munawwar Hasan, were absent. But party leaders played down these abstentions and claimed that only three ¿ Hasan, Jaiprakash, and Budhaulia — were likely to defy the party whip. “We do not bother about these people going away. We have managed more people than these from major parties,” said SP General Secretary Amar Singh after the meeting.

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