How much does the common man and most politicians understand about the nuances of the nuclear bill? Not much, because of its complexity but it has been the single point agenda of the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the past six years. He was eager to get the bill passed in last October itself before he visited Washington as an honored State guest of the US President Obama but could not do so due to the opposition to the bill in Parliament. Now that Obama himself will be coming to India in November, the PM is keen to deliver. When Obama arrives in November, Singh wants to move on to other strategic areas of cooperation instead of being bogged down with the nuclear bill.

Why is the Nuclear Liability bill important? It is necessary to define the financial and legal liabilities upon the players including the suppliers and operators in the event of a nuclear accident. In this case the suppliers and builders will be the foreign companies and the operator will be the Indian government controlled Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL). The bill will create a framework for compensation to the victims of nuclear accident, as no such framework exists in the country now. It is better to have a labiality law than nothing. Secondly, it also provides for liability outside India's territory. This is important in view of the lessons leant from the Bhopal gas tragedy.

No doubt that the Congress managers had been able get the BJP on board with a lot of behind the scene negotiations but the Congress led UPA government is playing truant in framing the bill adding a word here and deleting a word there creating confusion. The BJP wants to give an impression that the Government is bowing to all its demands.

From the beginning the bill has created controversy. There is a division even among the scientific community and political parties. If the left parties are opposed on ideological reasons, there are others who question the cost of nuclear power and also whether the nuclear power would meet a substantial portion of the energy demands of the country. There is yet another section who are opposed to anything to do with the nuclear weapons.

What is the politics behind the bill despite the fact that the two national parties - the Congress and the BJP - are on the same wavelength on the nuclear bill? The entire base had been laid during the regime of Atal Behari Vajpayee which was taken forward by the Congress.

Moreover, the congress managers find it easier to deal with the BJP than with the other parties like the left or the RJD, BSP and SP. It is more so because the BJP is not averse to the US as some of these other parties are. The BJP had done better business with the US than even the Congress governments. Moreover parties like the BSP, SP and the RJD demand their pound of flesh for their support to the government and had got away with successful negotiations in the past. The RJD, BSP and the SP have not given any dissent note in the standing committee but outside, the two Yadav chieftains Lalu Yadav and Mulayam Yadav are playing politics. They are opposing it talking of a secret deal between the BJP and the Congress. The BSP is mum so far.

The opposition parties are adamant on one thing that the suppliers should not go scot-free and they allege that the government is trying to protect their interests by these tricks. With the two major national parties on similar wavelength about the bill, it should have been passed smoothly. The government has been playing tricks with the words in the bill. Even the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha Hamid Ansari had wondered what was happening. Bipartisan support for any bill is a sign of mature democracy and the BJP had been more than willing to cooperate with the government on issues like nuclear liability bill, which will be the culmination of the Indo-US nuclear deal.

As far as the left parties, they have been consistent in opposing the bill. They even parted company with the Congress led UPA-1 on this issue in 2008. Their main fear is that the government was doing the bidding of the US and what bugs them most is the hidden economic and political strings that may come attached to the nuclear deal. They see some hidden commitment to safeguard the interests of the United States.

In the past one-year, the BJP and the left were working with understanding on many issues like the price rise and inflation. The Congress succeeded in breaking this unity on the nuclear liability issue. The resolve with which the government has managed to bring BJP on board through some smart back-channel negotiations outside and inside the Standing Committee that discussed the bill threadbare, has pushed the Left parties in corner

The compulsion of the Congress is that it does not have the majority in Rajya Sabha and even in the Lok Sabha it has become difficult to muster the strength and therefore it has to do business with these other parties. It will be a political victory for the Prime Minister once the Bill is passed by both the houses and made into an Act.(IPA Service)