New Delhi, The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Thursday called for the immediate resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government for "misleading" the nation on the India-US nuclear deal and said it would move a privilege motion in parliament during a special session if the demand was not met.

The BJP's demand came hours before the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG), which controls the world's nuclear fuel and equipment supply, was to begin a two-day special session in Vienna to decide on a "clean waiver" to allow nuclear commerce with India.

At least six members in the NSG are demanding insertion of condition that all commerce with India will be terminated if it conducts another nuclear test be brought in.

Mounting pressure on the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, BJP leader and former foreign minister Yashwant Sinha said with colleague Arun Shourie by his side: "The government is guilty of gross breach of privilege of both houses of parliament."

"The government has no business to continue in office and should step down immediately," he said at a press conference.

"If they fail to do so, we want that a special session of parliament called immediately, perhaps in a week's time, so that a breach of privilege motion can be moved against the government and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh."

The BJP leader referred to a report that appeared in the Washington Post quoting a letter from the US State Department to the US Congress in which it categorically said that all nuclear commerce with India would be immediately halted if it conducted a nuclear test.

"The letter is a firm reiteration of what the Bush government has been saying from time to time, but the UPA government has taken an 'ostrich' like attitude to the storm that has been gathering over our heads," Sinha said.

"This and other facts were deliberately hidden by the Congress-led coalition government and the Bush administration. The letter was written nine months before and had it been made public before July 22 trust vote, the Manmohan Singh government would not have won the trust vote."

Sinha argued that the 123 agreement between India and the US derives from the Hyde Act. "The act is not only relevant, it is binding on the agreement. India cannot escape from the rigours of the Hyde Act," he said.

He added: "While they (US) take the substance, we only take the semantics."

Referring to the letter that the Washington Post report quoted, Sinha said: "The letter is a responsible communications by the Bush government and we cannot ignore it."

The UPA government has been arguing that the Hyde Act is a domestic piece of legislation and not binding on India and that it would go only by the 123 agreement and the July 18, 2005 joint statement signed by Manmohan Singh and US President George W. Bush.

Shourie said the recently released US document was an interpretation of every single clause imported from the 123 agreement and the Indian government shared this interpretation.

"The prime minister kept repeating to the nation that cooperation from the US would be full while Bush has repeatedly made his stand clear there were would be no transfer of heavy water production, technology, reprocessing, etc.." Shourie said.

"While it is true that there is nothing new about the newly revealed information, it is a revelation of the falsehood of the government."

US Ambassador David Mulford said in a statement Wednesday that the US government had already shared all the provisions that were talked of in the Washington Post report and there was nothing new in them.

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