The powerful head of India's ruling Congress party stood firm behind a controversial nuclear deal with the United States on Tuesday as fresh efforts were launched to convince communist allies who have rejected it.
Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born chief of the party, called opposition to the deal "sloganeering", a day after some allies and opposition parties shouted down the prime minister's statement defending it in parliament.
The unrelenting opposition by four communist parties, whose support is critical for the survival of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's coalition, has sparked fears that it could destabilise the government nearly two years before national polls are due.
"Our government has entered into this agreement after tough negotiations," Gandhi told Congress party MPs. "The agreement fulfils all the assurances that the prime minister has given repeatedly in parliament."
"The objectives of technological self-reliance and national sovereignty have been and will continue to be fully protected," she said of the deal which governments in New Delhi and Washington have hailed as historic. "We are a democracy and differences in views are inevitable but informed debate and discussion are the answer."
The nuclear deal aims to give India access to US nuclear fuel and equipment for the first time in 30 years to help meet its soaring energy needs, even though it has stayed out of non-proliferation pacts and tested nuclear weapons.
First agreed in principle two years ago, the framework deal was approved by the US Congress last December and the pact that governs nuclear trade between the two, called the 123 agreement, was finalised last month.