Maintaining that prospects of operationalising the nuclear deal as per the American deadline were fading away, the Communist Party of India-Marxist Friday said a "desperate" attempt was being made to urge the government to go ahead with it, ignoring the objections by the Left and the opposition.

Observing that the US was facing "reverses" in Nepal and other South Asian countries with growing opposition to its moves, party General Secretary Prakash Karat said these have come at a time "when in India the opposition to the strategic alliance with the US has made progress with the success registered so far in blocking the Indo-US nuclear deal."

As a consequence, he said the attacks on CPI-M were being stepped up "as the prospects of the deal being operationalised as per the American deadline fade away."

"A desperate attempt is being made to urge the government to go ahead with the nuclear deal ignoring the objections of Left parties and the entire opposition," Karat said in an article in the party organ People's Democracy.

"One of the worn out charges resurrected" to discredit the CPI-M stand and to favour the deal going ahead was the accusation that party, "the third largest in Parliament", was "acting at the behest of China", he said.

In the article titled 'Nepal: Portents for South Asia', Karat said the US, as part of its "hegemonic designs", had planned to "wreck" the political process in the Himalayan nation to make it a democratic republic.

Maintaining that these plans were "thwarted" by the political developments in the Himalayan nation, the CPI-M leader said "the example of tiny Nepal defending its national sovereignty and standing up to the US dictates should be an object lesson for the rest of South Asia."

He said the successful elections to the Constituent Assembly and the victory of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) "has to be seen as a clear assertion of the will of the Nepalese people to set a democratic republic ending once and for all the feudal monarchy."

The Nepal poll results represented a "vital break in the now familiar pattern of intervention and influence by US imperialism in the affairs of South Asia."

After the agreement between the Seven Party Alliance and the CPN (Maoist), the US "tried its best to wreck" the political process, he said, quoting the American envoy as saying that cooperation with the Maoists was "fraught with danger".

The Bush Administration also backed King Gyanendra when he usurped all powers and provided military aid to the Royal Nepalese Army, he said, adding that Washington later started wooing the Madheshi groups hoping to "upset" the run-up to the elections.

However, at every step from the formation of interim government with Maoist participation to the holding of Constituent Assembly polls, "the US plans were thwarted", Karat said.