New Delhi, May 3: When the UPA-Left panel on the nuclear deal meets for the eighth time on Tuesday, it is expected to be more of a ritual for form’s sake, sources on both sides said.

Congress sources said the government was “too preoccupied” with its battle to rein in prices to think of anything else.

The party, they added, had also plunged into the Karnataka elections that begin on May 10.

“The nuclear deal has almost fallen off our radar screen,” said a panel representative from the Congress.

A senior CPM leader said “technically”, meetings of the committee would continue.

“However, nothing is going to change our stand against operationalising the deal because it is against the country’s interests,” the leader added, making it clear that the question of “allowing” the government to negotiate with Nuclear Suppliers Group countries didn’t arise.

With the Congress unlikely to go for general elections ahead of time, sources said, the endeavour would be to “keep the peace” with the Left and not open new fronts.

The other political reason for not pressing ahead with the deal, the sources added, was to “distance” the Congress and its leaders from the US ahead of the elections.

Never gung-ho about the treaty, the Congress privately feels it is time to counter the perception that it has abandoned the founding principles of the foreign policy crafted by Jawaharlal Nehru — the Non-aligned Movement — and is ready to embrace the US and co-exist with George W. Bush.

This is why, the party sources said, it had officially welcomed the Iranian President’s recent stopover in Delhi and endorsed India’s official snub to America’s request to try and stop Tehran’s nuclear programme.

“If the deal falls through, we won’t shed tears. There is a school of thought that says India will lose prestige globally. But in the run-up to the 2009 elections, we have to think of our domestic constituents,” said a cabinet minister.

The Congress is convinced the deal would not become an election issue despite efforts to showcase it as a source of “safe and clean” energy.

“That’s in the realm of the future. We have to answer people’s questions on why the government has not been able to control prices,” the minister said.

External affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee’s recent statement about taking the sense of Parliament before inking the deal is another manifestation of the Congress’s go-slow policy.

The Left, on its part, said it would hear out the government’s answers to the “clarifications” the CPM and its allies had sought on the IAEA safeguards draft.

At the last meeting, the Left had been briefed but not shown the text of the draft agreement with the atomic watchdog.

Left sources said they would ask to see the agreement. The strategy is, apparently, to stretch the meetings till July-end and hope the deadline — set by Washington to send the 123 Agreement along with the IAEA text and the NSG guidelines to the US Congress — would go awry.

Hope of a consensus with the BJP and the Samajwadi Party have also evaporated after the former hardened its opposition to the deal and Samajwadi leaders declared they would not take a stand on any issue independent of the UNPA, which it heads.