New Delhi, OCTOBER 12: In the strongest public indication of a climbdown since the last UPA-Left meeting on the nuclear deal, both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi today ruled out the possibility of an early general election and indicated that although efforts were on to see the nuclear deal through, this wasn’t a “one-issue government.”

Singh, who had dared the Left to withdraw support on the nuclear deal saying it was etched in stone, stood by his statement but said that the failure to carry the deal through “is not the end of life.”

Sonia Gandhi said the Left’s opposition is “not unreasonable,” and it’s the Congress’s coalition dharma to address the concerns of its partners. Both were speaking at The Hindustan Times leadership summit here today.

“Elections are still far away. The government has still one and half years to go to complete its term. I hope and expect we will stay the course,” the Prime Minister said.

“No, we are not in favour of early elections. As the Prime Minister has said, the deadline is 2009. We are going to do all that we can to see that we implement our programmes till 2009,” Sonia said.

Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram told the same conference that he would present the Budget as per schedule and “there will not be any compromise on fundamental principles of reforms.”

Asked if he would quit if the nuclear deal was not implemented, the PM said “it is a suggestion for action”. However, describing the deal as “honourable,” the Singh said he had not given up hope that the differences with the Left would be reconciled.

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.

Recalling the pressure the government faced in 1991 as it tried to bring about economic reforms, Singh said, “If we had dithered, if we had yielded to our critics, if we were not firm in our resolve, if we had been overwhelmed by self-doubt, we would have taken the country into a whirlpool of despair.”

“On the contrary, those reforms unveiled a new era of enterprise and creativity for India. Enveloped by crisis, besieged by political uncertainty, surrounded by anxiety, we imagined an India that can be,” he said.