(Clockwise from left) Manmohan Singh's daughter Amrit Singh, son-in-law and wife Gursharan Kaur listen to his speech at the UN headquarters in New York. (PTI)

New York, Sept. 27: The unifocal spotlight on the nuclear deal during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's four-and-a-half-day stay in the US may have dented India's traditionally important role at the UN during the most important week of the 63rd General Assembly.

If Singh returns to office after the Lok Sabha elections, he may regret that his preference for bilateral relations with the US over the work of the 63rd General Assembly during his current trip abroad may have been a proverbial case of having lost the kingdom for want of a horseshoe nail.

Just over a week before Singh arrived in New York, the General Assembly ended a stalemate on Security Council expansion and took a landmark decision to begin 'inter-governmental negotiations' on the issue by February 28, 2009.

With such a clear deadline for the first time in 15 years, Singh should have been in |the thick of making out India's strong case for a seat |at the UN's high table ever more strong in his bilateral meetings here and in Washington this week.

Instead, as foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon admitted in his briefing for the Indian media after Singh's meeting with US President George W. Bush on Thursday, the Prime Minister did not even raise the issue with the US President. 'The Prime Minister did not raise it this time, neither did President Bush,' Menon said.

The US has been the biggest impediment to India's Security Council aspirations. Singh or his successor may regret that this important opportunity at the White House to at least make one attempt to change Washington's mind on this issue at a crucial point during the expansion talks was frittered away.

The Prime Minister said almost by rote in his address to the 63rd General Assembly yesterday that 'the composition of the Security Council needs to change to reflect contemporary realities of the 21st century'.

A routine repetition of the basic Indian position, which successive General Assemblies have heard for several years in a row, is not a substitute for aggressive lobbying in New York during the opening week of the UN's principal deliberative organ.

This year's General Assembly is significantly more important than the ones in recent years because of the global financial crisis, the global food crisis and the half-way mark in the targets set for achieving global millennium development goals.

Other issues that have dominated the General Assembly discussions here this week include reform of the Bretton Woods institutions for monetary management worldwide that have come under strain and what the UN can do to stimulate the stalled world trade talks.

Singh is uniquely qualified as an economist of repute and as the architect of India's economic liberalisation to contribute to these discussions and there was a lot of anticipation at the UN that he would plunge headlong into these efforts once he arrived in New York.

Instead, he has spent much of his valuable time here meeting Indian community leaders who have lobbied for the nuclear deal with the US and, believe it or not, the leadership of the Overseas Indian Congress, the US outfit of supporters of the Indian National Congress.

On a day when New Delhi suffered yet another terrorist bomb explosion, it was being privately mentioned in the Prime Minister's entourage that Singh did not even spend adequate time pushing for the speedy adoption by the UN of a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism, of which India was a |key initiator under the NDA government.