Allies, new friends rally around PM on N-deal

END OF DEAL: CPI-M leader Prakash Karat announced that Left will pull the plug on Wednesday.

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Keywords: RLD, SP

New Delhi: The Congress has insisted that the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government was stable and that it had the numbers to face a Vote of Confidence in the Lok Sabha.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in Tokyo for the G8 Summit, sounded confident that Left withdrawing its support on the Indo-US Civil Nuclear Deal to his government will have not much affect.

"I don't think it will affect the stability," a confident Manmohan said. He also added that the government would go to the IAEA as soon as possible.

External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said that a brief session of Parliament might be called for the Vote of Confidence.

"Government will seek vote of confidence as soon as it receives formal communication from President Pratibha Patil," Mukherjee said. He also spoke to the Prime Minister in Tokyo and according to sources the Government may only go to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) after the trust vote.

Sources also added that the Government will be going to the IAEA on July 28 and so a special session of Parliament may be called on July 21.

Earlier, senior Congress leaders met at the residence of party President Sonia Gandhi to discuss the situation after Left announced that it would meet President Pratibha Patil on Wednesday to convey its decision about withdrawing the support.

The party called the Left's pullout unfortunately timed, saying it comes at a time when India was dealing with the blast in Kabul.

Congress Spokesperson Manish Tiwari addressed the media soon after Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) General Secretary Prakash Karat announced that the Left is pulling the plug on the UPA Government and condemned the action of the red Brigade.

"The Prime Minister did not say anything which the Congress or the UPA government had not been saying for the last four and a half years. After all the safeguards agreement with the IAEA had been negotiated it was a question of formalising it. There is nothing which the Prime Minister had said which was in contradiction with the stand which the government has taken," Tiwari said.

Tiwary also said that the government was stable. "There is no threat to the government. The government will go ahead with its agenda," he said.