New Delhi, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee late Thursday met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after holding a series of meetings with fellow Congress ministers and leaders of the allies as well as the Left parties over the India-US nuclear deal.

The Congress wants to go ahead with the pact that can open doors of global civil nuclear commerce for India but the Left parties that provide outside support to the Manmohan Singh government have refused to dilute their opposition to the deal.

To resolve the deadlock, Mukherjee had a meeting with Defence Minister A.K. Antony, Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal and Prithviraj Chavan, minister of state in the Prime Minister’s Office.

He later separately met Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, who heads the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), and Railway Minister Lalu Prasad, who heads the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).

Mukherjee also met Sitaram Yechury, a politburo member of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), which leads the four-party Left Front. He had earlier this week held two meetings with CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat on the issue.

Ending a busy day, Mukherjee met Manmohan Singh and discussed suggestions from the allies and the Left as well as a range of possibile solutions to the stalemate.

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