New Delhi, March 22: Sonia Gandhi has asked the Congress to focus “single-mindedly” on the Karnataka polls without getting “distracted” by talk of an early Lok Sabha election, party sources said.

The Election Commission is expected to announce the Karnataka poll schedule within 10 days. After the string of Assembly election defeats in 2007 and 2008, Sonia has emphasised that there was no way the Congress could let the southern state go.

“If we lose Karnataka, our workers’ morale will be so badly hurt that we may not go into the Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan elections with the expected confidence,” a Congress official said.

The party has received feedback that “anti-incumbency” has caught up with the BJP governments in the three heartland states. But the sources admitted that the Congress, on its part, had done little to suggest that it was about to wrest power in these states.

Sonia has also stressed that there can be “no question” of taking the next steps on the Indo-US nuclear deal without the Left’s go-ahead. Her remarks came yesterday at the core-committee meeting she chaired at the Prime Minister’s residence, the sources said.

So, the Centre may need to give the Left a detailed briefing on the safeguards agreement reached with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). It may perhaps have to share the text, with the atomic watchdog’s consent, when the UPA-Left panel on the deal meets next.

The meeting is likely to be held in mid-April after the CPM and the CPI are done with their party congresses.

Foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee told a TV interviewer yesterday that the “ground realities” at home could not be ignored.

“Because, they (the Left) are our supporters and they have stated their position (on the deal)… we are trying to carry conviction with them,” he said.

Government sources say that the IAEA has addressed India’s three key concerns —uninterrupted fuel supply, a strategic fuel reserve and corrective measures if supply was stopped. The Left, however, has made it clear that its problems relate not so much to the IAEA as to the 123 Agreement and the Hyde Act.

“We don’t know how we are going to handle this part of the deal,” a Congress official said.

Sources, however, stressed that the party would not bite the BJP’s bait. L.K. Advani recently suggested that if the Centre amended the Atomic Energy Act, India could be insulated from the implications of the Hyde Act.

Unlike last year, when he had made this suggestion conditional to the BJP’s support for the 123 Agreement, Advani was more cautious with his words this time.

“But even if he offers support, there’s no way the Congress will take it,” a Congress official said.

Sonia, the sources said, was clear that the “unity of the secular forces” was paramount and any arrangement that junked the Left for the BJP was unacceptable. This line of thinking is buttressed by the Congress’s knowledge that the BJP and the ADMK could strike an understanding in Karnataka.

Sonia’s other worry is the rising prices of essentials. She has warned the party that it may lose the goodwill of the Union budget if the prices of cereals, pulses, oil and vegetables do not come down soon.