While the Congress on Sunday termed the passage of the nuclear deal in the US House of Representatives as the “highest feat” of diplomacy sculptured by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Left said there was hardly anything to celebrate for the UPA Government even as it chalked out its strategy to fight Government on the issue.

Congress spokesperson M Veerappa Moily said the country was also “grateful” to US President George W Bush who made it possible to happen due to his “untiring” efforts. “This is the highest feat of diplomacy chiselled and sculptured by our great statesman Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, guided and inspired by our visionary party president Sonia Gandhi,” he said in a statement.

Congratulating the team of diplomats and nuclear scientists, he said “proud” India presented itself to the entire world “victory after victory” from the day the MoU on 123 agreement to the trust vote and from the clearance of the IAEA to the passage of the deal in the House.

In Kolkata, CPI(M) Politburo member Sitaram Yechury said the party would oppose the Indo-US nuclear deal when the Prime Minister comes back to India and places the bill in Parliament for discussion.

Claiming that apprehensions of the Left parties would come true, Yechury told the media that “this will only lead to India’s surrender to American dictates and will have implications and bearing beyond the nuclear deal”. “It is not surprising that the Senate will also approve it,” he added.

CPI(M) State Committee secretary in West Bengal Biman Bose called for a “jihad” against the deal by uniting all sections of people. “It will endanger India’s sovereignty and independent foreign policy,” he said.

In the national Capital, CPI national secretary D Raja told The Indian Express, “There is nothing to celebrate. There is a wide gap between what the Prime Minister had told the Indian Parliament and what the Americans are saying now. This deal is not in India’s interests. Our apprehensions have come true.”