Scotching speculation about early polls, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee has made it clear that the survival of the government was more important than the Indo-US nuclear deal and the Left parties will have to be taken on board.
He ruled out the possibility of a minority government signing the nuclear agreement, saying the US was not ready for it.
Mukherjee also said that India had not conducted negotiations on the agreement with a "fixed timeline", in an apparent response to the US which has set the deadline of May.
"We are trying to evolve a consensus and first the consensus will be with the supporting parties because that is primary importance for which the (UPA-Left) mechanism was created. Then we shall try to evolve a larger consensus," he said in an interview to Outlook magazine.
He said the government will have to discuss the India-IAEA safeguards agreement with the Left but declined to elaborate.
On the speculation about early polls, Mukherjee said "nobody is talking of elections now except journalists".
When pointed out that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi had said in October last that survival of the government is more important than the deal, he said "that position is still there".
He added "what the Congress President says is the final word of the party and what the Prime Minister says is the final word of the government".
