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Reuters, New Delhi- Parliament will meet for a confidence vote in the government on July 21 and 22 after the government's leftist allies withdrew their support to protest against a US nuclear deal, a minister said on Friday. "This decision has been communicated to the president of India," Viyalar Ravi, the minister for parliamentary affairs, told reporters after a cabinet meeting late on Friday.
A regional party has stepped in to replace Communists who opposed the nuclear deal, but Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government still needs the support of smaller parties and independent lawmakers to survive the confidence vote.
The government will fall if it loses the vote, triggering early elections and damaging chances of the deal.
The nuclear deal would be a landmark for India's relations with the West and allow India access to U.S. civilian nuclear fuel and technology, despite not signing the Non-Proliferation Treaty and conducting nuclear tests in 1974 and 1998.
Trying to cobble a majority, government allies met on Friday with potential supporting parties, many of whom are keen to avoid polls at a time when inflation is at a record high.
"I have no doubt that we shall prove our majority," Sonia Gandhi, the ruling Congress party head and India's most powerful politician, was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India.
The government's worries have been compounded by vacillation among some long-standing partners, worried the pact with the United States may alienate voters before elections next year.
The balance of power is held by the regional Samajwadi Party which said its 39 parliamentarians would back the government. But it needs another seven votes from smaller parties for a majority.
"I think the government will survive the confidence vote, perhaps with around a 10-vote margin," said analyst Kuldip Nayar.
India's main stock index fell last week in part due to the political uncertainty but has proven volatile as much on global economic factors as news of the Communists' exit.
PROS AND CONS
The nuclear deal will unlock an energy market worth billions of dollars for European and American nuclear firms. Communist parties say the deal makes India subservient to Washington.
First, the agreement needs clearance from the governors of the U.N. atomic watchdog and a 45-nation group that controls sensitive nuclear trade. The U.S. Congress must also ratify the deal, agreed in 2005, for it to come into force.
India took the first step toward implementation on Wednesday by submitting a draft plan for inspections of its civilian nuclear reactors to the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA's) Board of Governors in Vienna for approval.
Barack Obama, the presumptive U.S. Democratic presidential candidate, said he supported the deal, according to the transcript of an interview with an Indian news magazine.
"The existing agreement effectively balanced a range of important issues, from our strategic relationship with India to our non-proliferation concerns to India's energy needs," he told Outlook, which will publish the interview on Saturday.
Critics point to loopholes in the safeguards plan, citing a clause suggesting India could cancel IAEA checks if foreign fuel supplies were cut off in response to an act such as a nuclear bomb test by India.
But India's English-language media highlighted assurances India could buy nuclear fuel on the international market if the United States halted supplies.
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