If the BJP were to do that, the Congress will be in a dilemma. It cannot reject the offer and be criticised as the party that killed India’s nuclear programme in spite of the BJP’s efforts to save it. The BJP can take the credit of having rescued

India’s nuclear future from the certain death planned for it by the communists and from the indifferent Congress that did not assert itself adequately to save it. It is also in the BJP’s interest to drive as big a wedge between the Congress and the communists ahead of elections.

While the above analysis deals with party interests and options, the game also involves three individuals — Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi and L.K. Advani. Singh is a prime minister by accident and he cannot be relishing the prospect of going down in history as the PM who destroyed India’s international credibility and wound down Indian civil nuclear power. For him, his reputation in history should be more important than his continuance in office. He is in a position to tell the Congress leadership to choose between his continuance as PM and a few more months of the UPA tenure with communist support at the cost of scuttling the Indo-US deal. For Sonia Gandhi, the choice is between some more months in office for the UPA and at the end of it facing attack during the elections for having pushed India’s civil nuclear programme into a coma and having been manipulated by the leftists and sacrificed economic reform at their behest, and elections a few months in advance with the enhanced reputation of having stood up to the Left. For Advani, it is a choice between going down in history as Vajpayee’s former deputy who contributed to the winding down of the nuclear programme when he had an opportunity to save it, and offering to support the nuclear deal so that he can claim to have preserved the Vajpayee legacy of having made India into a nuclear state and one of the balancers of power in the world.

... contd.