NEW DELHI — India's ruling coalition survived a confidence vote by a slim margin Tuesday, keeping alive the possibility that a controversial nuclear cooperation deal with the U.S. would go ahead as planned.
After two days of heated debate, lawmakers voted 275 to 256 to support the government in what was not only a referendum on the nuclear accord but also, in the eyes of many here, a sorry display of backroom deal-making, alleged chicanery and political theater extraordinary even by the standards of India's Parliament.
The government's narrow but more-comfortable-than-expected victory means that early elections can be avoided and that its nuclear deal with the U.S. can move closer to fruition after months of delay and partisan bickering. Three years in the making, the unprecedented agreement would allow American companies to sell nuclear technology to India in exchange for the opening of this nation's civilian reactors to international inspection.
But the coalition headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh finds its credibility and scope for action weakened when inflation is at a 13-year high and the country's economic boom is showing signs of a slowdown.
The political scene is now likely to be dominated by alliance-building, horse-trading and message-tuning in anticipation of polls due by May 2009.
"The election season has already started -- we're already in the silly season," said analyst Subhash Agrawal, editor of a journal devoted to politics and diplomacy. "Everybody's going to be shadow-boxing and trying different populist measures and themes and promises."
In Washington, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said the Bush administration continued to support the nuclear pact, which critics in Congress say represents a reversal of decades of U.S. policy forbidding nuclear trade with nations such as India that have not signed the global nuclear nonproliferation treaty.
"We think that this idea of a U.S.-India civil nuclear arrangement is a good one for everybody," Perino told reporters after the vote.
"It's good for India because it would help provide them a source for energy that they need."
The nuclear agreement, first proposed by President Bush in 2005, is the centerpiece of warming ties between New Delhi and Washington. Singh has staked much of his foreign policy reputation on the success of the deal.
Singh, an economist by training, contends that the accord is necessary to help meet India's booming energy demands.
