Countdown Begins: You can't go to Vienna, says Left, leaving UPA with only two options: either go for broke or give in, last a full term; next meeting June 25 What the Congress kept delaying finally happened today: its moment of reckoning has come, after the Left made it clear it would not let the Government go to Vienna to confirm the safeguards agreement, the key first piece in the operationalisation of the Indo-US nuclear deal. Related Stories Pranab to visit Australia with hopes of rebuilding nuclear tiesIndia should sign n-deal soon: Russian envoyGovt's best case: Going to Vienna but its hands tiedWe only want Left to allow us to sign IAEA agreement: NSA President of India BJP Best Travel Deals in India The party's top brass went into a huddle at 10, Janpath faced with perhaps the toughest choice since they took charge four years ago: give in to the Left and freeze the Indo-US nuclear deal to keep the government alive and a line with the Left open in an election year or seize the historic opportunity and stamp the party's commitment to the "national interest.' Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who spoke to Congress President Sonia Gandhi on the phone, was learnt to have argued in favour of going ahead with the deal after the Left issued a statement that it was of the "firm opinion' that "the government should not proceed to seek approval of the text of the India-specific safeguards agreement from the Board of Directors of the IAEA.' This Left statement came a few hours after the government deferred today's UPA-Left meeting to June 25 as External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee's discussions with CPM general secretary Prakash Karat on Monday and Tuesday failed to make any headway. The Left also said it did not get the full text of the agreement. Official sources said that it had been conveyed to the Left that sharing the entire text would be a "breach of faith' as in the IAEA system, "an agreement is not an agreement' until it's taken to the Board of Governors. CPM Politburo member Sitaram Yechury had called on Congress President Sonia Gandhi last night to convey the Left's decision that it was prepared to pull the rug if the government went to Vienna. In the evening, Sonia Gandhi, her political secretary Ahmad Patel, Pranab Mukherjee and Defence Minister A K Antony weighed the government's options. They were understood to have been unanimous that going ahead with the deal was in the national interest given that it ended India's nuclear isolation and would help address a growing economy's energy needs and the severe shortage of fuel across the country's nuclear installations. But the discussion within the party has invariably turned to the compulsions of politics in an election year, the "risk of an early election' especially at a time when inflation is creeping towards double digits. One of the views proffered was whether it was worth sacrificing the government when it was not even clear if the deal would become a reality through the different stages at the IAEA and the NSG. For, if the UPA proceeded to the IAEA, the Left was set to reduce it to a minority government, which would anyways undermine its legitimacy to ink the 123 agreement. Another view was that once the IAEA agreement and the NSG exemption are in place, the "momentum' of the deal