Key grouping to decide stance on US-India nuclear deal soon

New Delhi: The United National Progressive Alliance (UNPA) will reveal its stand on the contentious Indo-US nuclear deal on July 3.

UNPA, a grouping of half a dozen regional parties, has emerged crucial in the number game for the United Progressive Alliance's (UPA) survival in view of the Left Front threat to withdraw its support to the ruling coalition if it tries to push ahead with the nuclear deal.

UNPA has a combined strength of 47 lawmakers as against 59 of the Left Front in Lok Sabha. With the UNPA support, the ruling coalition might still survive a no-confidence motion even if the Left Front decided to vote against the government.

For the time being, the UNPA is keeping the Congress party-led UPA on tenterhooks. "So far I have not seen the draft of the nuclear deal. I only know what has been discussed in the parliament," UNPA chairman Mulayam Singh Yadav said upon his arrival in the national capital on Tuesday.

Yadav's Samajwadi Party of late moved closer to the Congress party due to their common apathy for the Bahujan Samaj Party, which has since withdrawn its support to the government. BSP has 17 lawmakers in Lok Sabha and was supporting the ruling coalition from outside.

Top leaders of the UNPA would meet at the New Delhi residence of former Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala on July 3 to formulate its stand.

Interestingly, there is no unanimity within the UNPA. Chautala's Indian National Lok Dal and Asom Gana Parishad are currently in talks with the Bharatiya Janata Party which wants the two erstwhile allies back into the National Democratic Alliance it heads.

The Telugu Desam Party of former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu on the other hand is dead against shaking hands with the Congress party as Congress is his party's main rival in Andhra Pradesh which is set to go to polls next year.

Samajwadi Party on its own has 39 lawmakers and even without TDP which has five MPs, can help the UPA sail through the no-confidence motion, although the UPA might need to tap some other smaller parties for support to make up for the crucial number of 273, the half-way mark in the 545-member Lok Sabha.

Yadav's party, however, is right now trying to patch up between the Congress party and the Left Front.