With the first day of the debate that will culminate in a vote of confidence (or lack of it) in the present Indian government, the final act of the year-long nuclear deal drama finally started in the Parliament today. It was, in many ways, the culmination of a four-years-plus uneasy alliance between traditional adversaries the Congress and the Left Front.

Whatever the myriad reasons behind the unraveling of relations between Prakash Karat & Co. and Manmohan Singh's government be, there's no denying that the nuclear deal-in-limbo was the proverbial last straw that broke the camel's back. But can the camel stand up and walk for nine more months until the five-year term of the UPA government expires is anybody's guess, and answerable with complete certainty almost 24 hours from now.

After the left wing parties withdrew their support, the UPA coalition that has 226 members, requires 46 more votes to gain a majority in the 542-member house. It has secured the support of 34 members from the regional Samajwadi Party and has been courting MPs from smaller parties and independent lawmakers to reach the 272 mark.

However, the magic mark may well be short of the 272 figure, and for this the Congress is certainly grateful. This is because of the large number of no-shows expected tomorrow. Although Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee is the sole MP who has publicly said that she would abstain, nine others, from the opposition BJP and her allies, are expected to join her.

Twelve hours have been allotted for the debate and the voting is expected on Tuesday evening at about 6 PM after the prime minister's reply.

With Speaker Somnath Chatterjee brushing aside his party's demand for his resignation and presiding over the proceedings, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh moved a one-line motion "that this House expresses its confidence in the Council of Ministers".

 The debate, is scheduled to continue until Tuesday evening when the vote will be called. He regretted that the government had to seek a vote of confidence at a time when its attention was on the economy, controlling inflation and implementing welfare programmes, particularly for farmers.

"I regret that this session of parliament has been convened when the attention of the government has been on the economy, particularly on the control of inflation and on implementing programmes for the welfare of our people, particularly our farmers. This exercise, I submit sir, was wholly avoidable," he said."I assure the House and the country that every single decision, every policy initiative we have taken was in the fullest confidence that we are doing so in the best interests of our people and our country," the prime minister said to the thumping of desks by the ruling UPA MPs.

"This exercise, I submit sir, was wholly avoidable," he said. "I have repeatedly assured all, including the Left parties, that I myself would come to the guidance of Parliament before operationalising the nuclear deal, if we were allowed to go to the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) to finalise the India-specific safeguards agreement)," he explained.

Minutes before the debate began, Singh flashed the victory V-sign as he entered the Parliament House. "We will prove the majority on the floor of the house," he told reporters.

And, in an apparent dig at CPI-M leader Karat, Manmohan Singh praised the "sagacity, wisdom and visionary leadership" of CPI-M veterans Jyoti Basu and Harkishan Singh Surjeet who he said were the architects of the 2004 decision to form a UPA-Left coalition government.

L K Advani, the BJP prime ministerial candidate and leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, pledged to renegotiate the nuclear deal if his party came to power.

In his hour-long speech in which he covered a range of issues, including internal security and the price rise, Advani said he was neither against nuclear energy nor against a "strategic relationship" with the US. He added that the BJP had no objections to strategic ties with the US, Japan or Russia.

"We are not at all opposed (to) a relationship with America. (But) irrespective of how powerful the country, we would not like India to be a party to an agreement which is unequal," he said. He stated that the India-US nuclear deal makes India a "subservient partner".

Advani said it was neither the opposition BJP nor the Left parties that were responsible for the present crisis but the UPA itself.

"This situation has been brought by the UPA Government itself. We are here to defeat the government on the floor of this house not to destabilise it. There has never been a session like this before. It's for the first time that a discussion is taking place whether a minority government should stay or not," said Advani.

Of course, he did not forget to take a dig at Manmohan Singh's supposed deference in decision-making to UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi. "Without the Congress president's (Sonia Gandhi) approval, you will not take a single step," he said.

Under the 123 nuclear agreement, the US would provide India fissile material and technology for civilian reactors, ending a three-decade ban. India would in turn, open its civilian nuclear reactors to international inspections.

India has to reach a country-specific safeguards agreement with the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) before the deal is ratified by the US Congress. A meeting of the IAEA board of governors to discuss a draft agreement has been scheduled for 1 August.

The 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), which controls the global trade in fissile materials, would be required to change its rules as well before the deal could be implemented.

On behalf of the CPI(M), Lok Sabha member Mohammad Salim accused the UPA government and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of betraying the Left parties who had supported the government for over four years. He even accused the PM of being a dealer and not a leader who was only concerned about the nuclear deal with the US.

He said that the scientists who had made India self-reliant in nuclear energy had asked the prime minister not to proceed with the deal.

He further accused the US of trying to sell nuclear energy to India, which the world was not embracing. To back his claim, Salim said that according to a projection made in the Annual Energy Outlook 2008, by 2030, the world's nuclear energy would stand at 7.8 per cent, compared to 9.6 per cent in 2005.

The CPI(M) MP claimed that the government had outsourced diplomacy work to the US whose officials like William Burns were taking decisions on behalf of India at the IAEA.

Concluding his speech, Salim asked the government not to depend on Bush, but instead on the Indian people.

Demolishing the arguments of the government's detractors over the nuclear deal, external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee, in his speech later, said the nuclear deal would bring an end to the nuclear apartheid and isolation that India had been subjected to for 30 years.

Building his case for the nuclear deal, the minister said, "Some will even use the word apartheid and not only isolation. But the deal will open the door to nuclear technology."

Mukherjee argued that the government had to get the safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) approved as well as get the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG) to change its existing guidelines to allow commerce on civil nuclear energy between its 45-members and India.

"Unless you go to NSG, even our friends in Russia or France cannot have any cooperation with us on civil nuclear energy," he said.

Creatively describing the IAEA and the NSG as the "passport and visa into the nuclear club" which would help India to travel on the road of civil nuclear energy, Mukherjee, once India had both these it would in a position to choose "where it wanted to travel".

He denied that the Hyde Act was applicable to India and said it would not affect it adversely even if the government were to sign and operationalise the 123 agreement with the US for cooperation in the field of civil nuclear energy.

Dismissing the opposition's charge that the government had used stealth while negotiating the nuclear deal, Mukherjee went into great detail on the number of times debates and discussions were held in parliament on the issue.

"I don't remember any foreign policy issue that has ever been so intensely or exhaustively debated in parliament as the civil nuclear deal," Mukherjee said.