Manmohan Singh with Senator Joseph Biden in Delhi. (PTI)

New Delhi, Feb. 20: A key figure behind Washington’s foreign policy today set July as the deadline for India to save the nuclear deal as the legislative clock was ticking fast in an election year.

Joseph Biden, who heads the influential Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Delhi had to decide fast as a Democrat President was likely to “renegotiate” the deal.

“It will be very difficult if we don’t get the deal before July-end. If it is not ratified by the US Congress by then, the deal will be renegotiated by a Democrat President,” Biden told Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and national security adviser M.K. Narayanan when he met them on the way back from Pakistan.

Asked if July was the de facto deadline, he said: “Practically, it is.”

“July is the end…. If it is not done by the end of July, the deal does not go through. It has to reach the US Congress before June,” Biden, who was accompanied by fellow senators John Kerry (Democrat) and Chuck Hagel (Republican), stressed.

The deal, signed in 2005 but mired in politics ever since, is waiting for the end of safeguard talks with atomic watchdog IAEA before it is placed before the UPA-Left panel for the final nod.

Four rounds of IAEA talks are already over and another round was to have taken place in January. But the government has yet to reschedule it.

John Kerry at a news conference in Delhi. (Reuters)

Kerry, the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 elections, said it was an “important” moment for India. “If we don’t get the IAEA pact within weeks, it’s going to be physically difficult due to the congressional calendar to get the deal through.”

He added that the “reluctance” of senators on the deal had been overcome by their “belief in the strength of the India-US relationship”.

“It is important for India to move the agreement as rapidly as possible, preferably within weeks. Time is of essence,” Biden said. “It is in India’s interest. It is India’s decision.”

Biden said Washington’s strategic partnership with Delhi was bigger than the nuclear pact, but made it clear that “failure” to push it through this year would “indirectly impact” their growing relationship.

“If the Indian government waits too long and sends it to us at the last moment, the deal will not go through. Our worry is that our failure to ratify the deal will then be seen in India as a rejection,” he said.

“That will be a wrong message. We trust India. We trust Indians. We value very much India being brought to the nuclear table.”

Hagel said a “number” of senators would be “very sad” if the deal did not go through. “A number of Democratic senators are ready to vote for the deal,” he added.