New Delhi, July 10: The Prime Minister met President Pratibha Patil today and said he would seek a trust vote “as early as possible” as his party scrambled to douse the controversy arising out of last night’s approach to the IAEA.

The government had got the draft of the safeguards agreement circulated among the IAEA board members, prompting the Left and the NDA to accuse it of going back on foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee’s assurance that it would seek a confidence vote first.

The Congress argued the government’s move was a preliminary one and did not amount to “going to the IAEA”. Also, it said, the decision was the atomic energy department’s and so Mukherjee cannot be accused of doublespeak.

It also claimed the government had been right not to show the draft agreement to the Left, which went ballistic today after the IAEA posted the text on the Internet and the Centre followed suit.

The decision to seek a trust vote came at a Congress core committee meeting this afternoon. On Friday, the cabinet will decide the date for convening the Lok Sabha, and the President will then issue a notification.

Singh is the seventh Prime Minister to seek a floor test in office, but the first to do it in the last year of his term.

The Indian Union Muslim League, an UPA partner with two MPs, today decided to vote for the government despite the nuclear deal being dubbed “anti-Muslim” by some. Party member and junior foreign minister E. Ahamed, however, said the League had “some anxieties” over the deal which “will be conveyed to the Prime Minister and Sonia Gandhi”.

The Congress fielded M. Veerappa Moily, Mohsina Kidwai, Kapil Sibal and Manish Tewari to answer the charges of “betraying the country” and making Mukherjee’s position “untenable” by going back on his assurance. Mukherjee is said to have himself briefed the four spokespersons.

They were told not to be “apologetic”, to speak in one voice and, most crucially, to “correct” the perception that Singh and his No. 2, Mukherjee, worked at cross-purposes.

Moily said: “It is wrong to interpret the request for convening the meeting of the board of governors… as going to the IAEA.”

He said circulating the text was merely meant to allow the board members to consider the draft before the meeting was called.

Sibal said the foreign ministry was a “facilitator” in international negotiations and not a “decision-maker”.

“When the WTO negotiations were on, the commerce ministry was the decision-maker. When it is the IAEA, it’s the department of atomic energy. It decided to send the draft to the IAEA. To cast aspersions (on Mukherjee) is unfortunate.”

Asked why the Left had been denied a look at the draft, Tewary had gaffed yesterday by saying that revealing the text would have invited “nuclear terrorism”.

Today, Moily explained the text was “registered” (euphemism for “classified”) till the IAEA “de-registered” it by posting it on the Net.

Sibal repeated the old argument that the “draft could not be disclosed to the Left because they were not part of the government”.