Rahul Gandhi leaves Parliament on Monday. Picture by Rajesh Kumar

New Delhi, March 3: Nuclear blackmail? No sweat. The Congress will plough on.

Literally.

Armed with the pro-farmer budget, the party today backed the Centre’s renewed efforts to get the nuclear deal out of the freezer. Sources said they hoped the Left would see “reason” in what was being touted as India’s success in swinging a “favourable deal” from atomic watchdog IAEA at their fifth round of talks.

The party didn’t sound unduly worried by the Left’s dark hints on the Finance Bill in case relations between the allies snapped over the nuclear talks.

“Let them reject a budget that bailed out four crore indebted farmers of the country, not to speak of the goodies it rolled out for the middle class, women and students,” a cabinet minister said.

The UPA-Left committee on the nuclear deal is expected to meet at the end of this month after external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee returns from the US.

Mukherjee will leave for Washington on March 24 and, on the agenda, is a meeting with secretary of state Condoleezza Rice.

“We are happy at the significant and notable progress India made at the IAEA talks,” party spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said.

“We are particularly happy that a vast area of differences has been covered. We are very optimistic about the outcome of the talks in view of the great momentum and convergence in the fifth round.”

Singhvi emphasised the government’s commitment to the “desirability” of the deal.

“We are sure that with a broad agreement on so many issues at the IAEA, importantly with all or most points of India-specific safeguards, with respect to India’s version of India-specific safeguards, we are confident of a reasonable and constructive approach by all sections of the (UPA-Left) joint mechanism.”

Asked to spell out the areas of convergence, he said: “The details will be announced by the appointed interlocutors. Today, we are expressing our satisfaction at the success.”

The sources said at least eight of the Left’s 10 concerns had been addressed at the IAEA talks. “Which sane person would oppose such a draft?” a source said.

Asked about the fate of the Finance Bill if the Left refused to play ball, Singhvi said: “It is absolutely speculative and hypothetical to worry about speculative and hypothetical events.”

Party insiders, however, dared the Left to vote out the Finance Bill, which operationalises the budget.

“We can go to town saying the very people who killed farmers protesting against land acquisition in Nandigram have denied four crore farmers of this country their loan waiver,” said a minister.

“Day after day, their leaders have trashed us on all kinds of issues. It’s time we paid back in kind,” a source said, but added that the “jugalbandi” (verbal duet) should be calibrated and not allowed to spin out of control yet.

“Our idea is to prove that we respect coalition ethics, which is why we set up the joint mechanism. But we cannot be seen as buckling under pressure.”