Amethi, July 16 : AICC General Secretary and Nehru-Gandhi family scion, Rahul Gandhi today said that the proposed Indo-US nuclear deal was in the national interest, and if the Congress-led UPA Government falls on July 22 during the trust vote on the deal, "let it fall".

Fully backing Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh for going ahead on the nuclear deal, a mature-looking Rahul said, "sometimes one has to take risks in life (in the national interest). Our prime minister has shown a vision, and I give a 100 percent backing to him. I would say that he should try for such a deal again and again until it was finalised (with the US)."

"Those opposing the deal say that uranium could produce only three percent power. How do we know it....... may be some bright scientist in our country works on it and successfully produces 70 percent power out of it," he added.

Speaking to press reporters during his visit to Amethi, he claimed that young MPs across the party lines were supporting the deal saying that they fail to understand why their party leadership was against the deal.

"Even a section of BJP MPs, particularly young, have confided in me that they support the deal. They also tell me that their party leadership was against the deal," he said and added that the deal was in national interest but those opposing it were doing so only due to "political and ideological" reasons.

Drawing a parallel between the deal and computerisation being introduced by his late father Rajiv Gandhi during his prime ministership, he said, "when I was a young boy, my father talked about computerisation. But people opposed the idea saying that India lived in villages and how would a computer help a farmer. Today you can see how much a computer has changed our lives........ today everyone of us has a computer in our houses."

Castigating the Uttar Pradesh government for not doing enough to eradicate poverty, he said: "today the priority for the present day Uttar Pradesh government, or any government in the country, should be remove poverty. In my opinion, the UP government is not doing enough in this direction." (ANI)