New Delhi, June 6: Many in the Congress are back to debating the nuclear deal, emboldened by the Prime Minister hiking fuel prices against the Left’s wishes and defending it in an address to the nation.

“It’s time we stopped being circumspect and agonising over what happens if the Left withdraws support, we plunge into an election and are forced to do business with them again,” a leader said.

“We have indulged them enough and more. It’s time to salvage our credibility and restore the nation’s integrity by signing the deal.”

Pro-deal lobbies are making the following points:

Going ahead with the deal would give the party and the government the “muscle and sense of purpose” they have lacked so far as decision after decision was put on ice or junked under Left pressure

The deal should be held up as the last hope for a power-strapped India and as a move in “supreme national interest”, as Manmohan Singh had done with the fuel price hike

The Left is “vulnerable” after the reverses in the Bengal panchayat polls, and may not pull out support and force an election on itself

If the opportunity is passed up, the BJP will sign the deal if it comes to power and steal the glory. L.K. Advani recently indicated that his party was not “basically” opposed to the 123 Agreement and only wanted some redrafting to allow India the right to conduct nuclear tests.

The deal backers, however, are unsure whether Sonia Gandhi has amended her position that it is unwise to have a permanent, or even a long-term, rupture with the Left. She believes that “secularism is supreme” for the Congress and that all the secular parties need to be on the same side to keep the BJP out.

But when Jairam Ramesh, the junior commerce and power minister, rooted for the nuclear deal publicly this week, many wondered why.

On June 2, Ramesh was quoted by PTI as saying in Vadodara that signing the 123 Agreement was “necessary as the nuclear deal will not only yield a great advantage to the country but enhance our prestige at the international level”.

Congress officials said Ramesh, so far silent on the subject, would not have spoken so much without a “signal from the highest echelons” of the party.

But some sources close to Ramesh said “nothing political” should be read in his statement. They argued that as junior power minister, Ramesh could not ignore the fact that India’s nuclear plants were running at only 50 per cent capacity because of a uranium crunch.

The Congress has also to contend with persistent opposition from within.

Leaders like A.K. Antony, Shivraj Patil, Arjun Singh, Priya Ranjan Das Munshi and Vayalar Ravi feel that the deal’s “negative fallout” is too strong to be countered with the “nationalist argument”. The first three are members of the party’s core committee and the Congress Working Committee.