Rahul Gandhi with a villager in Ijurpa on Friday. (Below) Sonia Gandhi at the Lal Bahadur Shastri memorial in Delhi for the unveiling of the former Prime Minister’s statue. Pictures by Sanjib Das and Rajesh Kumar

New Delhi, March 7: The Congress is looking for clues to the last word on the nuclear deal in Sonia Gandhi’s “budget rally” on Sunday and a parliamentary party meeting on Tuesday.

Some confusion has crept up on the party after seemingly contradictory statements by chief spokesperson M. Veerappa Moily and comments in an interview attributed to foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee.

Congress leaders are also wondering what the Prime Minister and Mukherjee meant when they referred to the “broadest political consensus” in Parliament.

Moily had said no “international trade agreement” — a euphemism for the nuclear deal — could be subject to constitutional and parliamentary ratification, indirectly contesting the Left’s argument that the pact carried no House sanction.

The interview attributed to Mukherjee suggested a more conciliatory line. PTI quoted Mukherjee as saying that a “minority government cannot sign a major international agreement because of the risks involved”. “A minority government cannot, need not and should not sign a major agreement like this,” he was quoted as saying.

The Left had been warning that any progress on the deal would be a “gross violation of the majority in Parliament”.

Moily’s contention was India retained its “credibility” in the comity of nations because it was free to negotiate and ink international agreements without Parliament’s ratification. No country would take India seriously if it suddenly said the nuclear deal would be voted in the House, he argued.

Moily was non-committal on whether the UPA government would risk its survival on the nuclear deal. But Mukherjee said: “The survival of the government is of primary concern just as the Prime Minister and the Congress president had stated in October.”

Sonia’s rally to hardsell the budget and the meeting next week have assumed added significance against the backdrop of such statements.

Congress leaders said the issues they expected Sonia to clarify were:

Is the Congress prepared for an early election?

How early is early? “We want a timeline to be indicated,” an office-bearer said. A cabinet minister said he was flooded with calls from his constituency workers whether they should start preparing for polls right away.

What do the UPA allies want?

Is the Congress ready to break with the Left or does the party expect to do business with the combine after the next elections if the circumstances demand so?

What did the Prime Minister and Mukherjee mean by the “broadest possible consensus” on the deal? “Why did the Prime Minister bring Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Brajesh Mishra into the picture to get the BJP’s support for the deal?” asked a general secretary.

All these questions are unlikely to be answered in a public rally but such is the uncertainty in the ranks that the weekend event has raised expectations of some clues.