New Delhi, June 30 (IANS) Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh held a meeting with External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee late Monday night amid the stand-off between the Congress and the Left parties over the India-US nuclear deal.
The meeting is seen as an attempt to reach an understanding over the Samajwadi Party's possible support to the Congress-led government.
'We will have to see how best to avert a crisis. No party is untouchable,' Singh told the NDTV news channel.
Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh returned from the US earlier in the day.
There were clear indications that the Samajwadi Party headed by Mulayam Singh Yadav was softening towards the Congress which is desperate for its support to save the deal and to continue in power for the remaining months of its five-year tenure.
Left sources said the communists were trying to convince Samajwadi Party not to support the deal even if it extended parliamentary support to the government till elections.
Meanwhile, a section of Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leaders wanted the party to pull down the government if Manmohan Singh leaves for G-8 summit, to be held July 7-9 in Japan.
They argue that prime minister's visit, during which he will meet US President George W. Bush on the sidelines of the summit, would be a clear indication that the government had taken a final call to go ahead with the nuclear deal.
