"This has always been a bad deal. It's a nuclear giveaway to India that strikes a harsh blow to efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and technology. Now President Bush trying his best to make it even worse," leader of the group Edward Markey said in a letter to Chairman of the House International Relations Committee Henry Hyde and Ranking Member Tom Lantos.

The group of law makers asked Hyde and Lantos to make sure that some areas of the current legislations that are seen as problematic and outside the scope of the July 2005 agreement between the leaders of India and US are retained.

" All of us consider halting the proliferation of nuclear materials and technologies to be a paramount national security and foreign policy interest of United States. We therefore wish to strongly urge you to ensure that several critical nonproliferation provisions contained in the Senate and House bills are included in any final conference report," Markey and his colleagues have maintained.

"Why in the world would Secretary Rice ask that Congress remove all of the provisions which would strengthen nonproliferation, such as requiring India to help the United States prevent Iran from going nuclear?," the Massachussetts Democrat said in reference to a recent letter written by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to some senior law makers.

Apart from Markey those who signed the letter included Jane Harman, Adam Schiff, Rick Larsen, John Spratt, Ellen Tauscher and Robert Andrews.