New Delhi, Aug. 26: Left leaders are likely to meet Pranab Mukherjee tomorrow evening, signalling their intent not to allow the nuclear impasse to linger.

The foreign minister, who is the Congress’s principal mediator with the Left, will brief them about the parameters evolved by his party’s core committee at its last meeting to try and seek a “resolution”.

The Congress has made it clear that the deal was not a “sell-out” to US “imperialism” and there was no strategic or military alliance with the US. “Friendship” with the US, it has asserted, would remain on India’s terms and the Congress’s commitment to nationalism was unimpeachable. Therefore, there was no harm in talking with the IAEA and the Nuclear Suppliers Group to negotiate changes that are in India’s sovereign interest.

If at the end of the day, the Left was unconvinced, “there’s little we can do”, said a government source.

The party’s concern was even if it found a way of buying temporary peace with the Left and thus a reprieve from snap polls, it should not be construed as a “climbdown” or a “compromise”.

Sources said the Congress was not interested in scoring brownie points over its ally. But if the Left hails a settlement as a “victory”, it would indicate that the trust deficit between the Congress and the Left has grown.

“We are clear that while a face-saver would be mutually acceptable, it should not be at the cost of undermining the Congress’s strength,” a source stressed.

The Left, which has tossed the ball in the Congress’s court, reiterated that if an election became inevitable, the Congress would have to carry the cross of “destabilising” the polity.

“We are not interested in going for an election. That’s for the Congress to decide,” CPI general secretary A.B. Bardhan told The Telegraph.

Depending on the outcome of the Mukherjee-Left talks, the Congress core committee — it includes Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi, Shivraj Patil, A.K. Antony, Ahmed Patel and Arjun Singh — will decide the next course of action at the Prime Minister’s residence.

The only nuanced change in the Congress’s position has been an attempt to de-link the deal from George W. Bush’s persona. There was some concern in the party on how the statements of the Prime Minister and Ronen Sen, the ambassador to the US, virtually hailing the American President as a saviour to India, would impact the minds of Muslims and the larger anti-US domestic constituency if the Left and the Samajwadi Party played these up in their political campaigns.

“Where is the question of Bush and the US? The deal doesn’t force us to deal with the US. In fact, we needn’t buy anything from the US, we can buy all our equipment from Russia if we choose to,” said Kapil Sibal, the science and technology minister who has consistently defended the deal.

The Prime Minister has called off his visit to Bush’s Crawford ranch in Texas as a conciliatory gesture towards the Left but simultaneously made it clear that India would intensify its engagement with other nuclear powers like France.

The Congress got a shot in its arm when Lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal endorsed the deal in its national conference at Sarnath near Varanasi. “There is no alternative other than generation of nuclear energy to meet our electricity requirements at present and in the future,” the RJD’s resolution said.

But the Bahujan Samaj Party — another ally like the Left that supports the UPA government from outside — went hammer and tongs at the Centre for not bailing out Uttar Pradesh financially. “The Congress is keeping in mind the interest of corporate houses, not the poor,” chief minister Mayavati alleged at a public meeting in Farukkhabad.

The nuclear deal controversy is a big headache for the Congress, but its future strategy hinges on a graver consideration: if it were to lose the Left, would the “mercurial” Mayavati — who has demanded Rs 80,000 crore from the Centre — make good the loss?