NEW DELHI, Mar 6 (IPS) - Is the Indian government heading for a showdown with the domestic opposition on the controversial issue of the nuclear cooperation deal with the United States before the presidential election timetable closes that opportunity? Going by the recent pronouncements of U.S. officials urging a May deadline to complete the deal, by statements by leaders of India’s ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA), including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee, and by the Left parties’ latest reactions to them, that would indeed seem to be the case. As the government seemingly ups the ante, the Left is reportedly considering issuing it an end-March ultimatum to decide on the deal, or face withdrawal of its crucial support, which would put the ruling coalition into a parliamentary minority. The general secretary of the Communist Party of India -Marxist (CPI-M), the Left’s leading party, has written a letter to Mukherjee demanding a meeting of the special joint committee of the UPA and the Left on the deal by Mar.15. Besides feverish U.S. lobbying, the impression that a final confrontation on the deal may be around the corner is strengthened by media reports which suggest that a section of the UPA wants to bow to U.S. pressure and seize the chance to complete negotiations on the deal so that it can be ratified by the Senate by the end of July. However, it is clear that a decision to precipitate a showdown by accelerating the process of clinching the nuclear deal is a major political call. And the UPA’s top leadership does not yet seem ready to take that call. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that the political equations within the context of which the fate of the deal will be decided have undergone a change. "Within the past 10 days, both domestic and external factors which favour the deal have got strengthened," says a political source close to senior leaders of the Congress party, which leads the UPA, who insisted on anonymity. "But on balance," says the source, "it is still not clear if the Congress’s top brass will want to sever the UPA’s relationship with the Left parties whose support it needs for a parliamentary majority." Four considerations seem to have weighed with the UPA-Congress leadership in favour of the deal. First, the government presented its fifth budget last week, which announced a large, unprecedented 15 billion US dollar write-off of loans borrowed by farmers, who have been in acute distress. Over the past decade, 100,000 farmers have committed suicide, according to official figures. According to independent estimates, based on suicide records, the number is 150,000. The Congress leadership believes that the budget has created goodwill for the government among the underprivileged, who form a majority of India's population. The budget also hands out significant income tax breaks for the urban upper middle-class, a much smaller, but vocal constituency, besides making cars, air-conditioners and two-wheelers cheaper. All this can help the UPA perform better in a mid-term election than in 2004, when the Congress won only 145 out of 543 seats in the lower house of Parliament. Second, the UPA reckons that the budget can help it withstand pressure from the Left, which would find it difficult to criticise it or vote against it. The vote on the budget issue is due on May 24. Third, the UPA is trying to reach out to the opposition, right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which too is against the deal. On Wednesday Prime Minister Singh described BJP leader and former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee as the grand patriarch of Indian politics, and made an appeal to him to rise above party differences and support the deal. Singh referred to the now-changed pro-deal position adopted by Vajpayee confidant and former national security adviser Brajesh Mishra. Singh's advisers believe that they can soften up the BJP's opposition, and also encourage U.S. officials to lobby the traditionally pro-American party. And fourth, visiting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher tried to allay fears about a domestic U.S. law passed by Congress in 2006, called the Hyde Act, which enables the deal on certain conditions. The Act is a subject of much controversy in India, and mandates the U.S. government to cease nuclear cooperation with India, if India conducts a nuclear test. India's opposition maintains that the Act trumps the bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement signed last July between India and the U.S., called the "123 agreement" because it pertains to section 123 of the US Atomic Energy Act. Last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice affirmed the supremacy of the Hyde Act and said the U.S. government would work within its bounds. But Boucher backed the Indian government’s view that "we can move forward" with both the Act and the 123 agreement "in a consistent manner"; the Act is nothing to worry about. Like a long line of US officials who have visited India or made statements on the deal, including Defence Secretary Robert Gates, Boucher too pushed hard for speedily concluding the deal. He said: "The time is short.. the time is tight, very tight and there is a lot of work to be done." "U.S. officials have conveyed two clear messages to India," says M.V. Ramana, a nuclear analyst based at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in the Environment and Development in Bangalore. "First, there is only a small window of opportunity for the deal if it is to be passed by Congress while President Bush is in power. So India must make up its mind very quickly." The second message, adds Ramana, "is that the Bush administration has done its very best to facilitate the deal in the U.S. India should expect nothing more. Equally, India must be clear that the first commercial contracts from the deal should go to U.S. companies." That explains part of the hurry to push the deal through. The Indian government also apparently feels encouraged by the recently concluded fifth round of talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency on a special safeguards (inspections) agreement. It is not clear if the two contentious issues, the right to uninterrupted fuel supplies, and the right to take "corrective action" in case these are disrupted, have been resolved. But sources close to the nuclear establishment have been quoted as saying that a tentative solution has been reached, which the government is now in the process of examining. "Whatever happens in Vienna", says Ramana, "the UPA will not find it easy to neutralise the opposition, in particular by the Left. It cannot pretend that the Hyde Act cannot affect future U.S.-India nuclear dealings. In the eventuality of India conducting a test, the Act will prevail." The UPA is now engaged in assessing its options as it comes under pressure from the US and Indian business lobbies, on the one hand, and its friends on the Left, on the other. "This won't be an easy choice to make," argues Achin Vanaik. "A majority of parties in Parliament are opposed to the deal. This will compromise its legitimacy. If the Left withdraws support, the UPA will have to call an early election. But there is no guarantee that the UPA will not need the Left’s support yet again." According to Congress sources, party president Sonia Gandhi was reluctant in the past to sever ties with the Left. How she deals with the present crisis will seal the fate of the nuclear deal. For the moment, the UPA seems to be testing the waters before it arrives at a firm decision.