Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government is expected to call a parliamentary confidence vote later this month that will determine its fate and the future of a controversial nuclear deal with the United States, a party official said Friday.

Singh met with his coalition partners on Friday to assess their strength ahead of the vote, following a withdrawal of support by key communist allies.

“I have no doubt that we shall prove our majority,” the Press Trust of India news agency quoted Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi saying at the meeting.

India’s Cabinet was meeting later Friday to set a date for the confidence vote. It’s expected to recommend a date in the third week of July, said the party official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.

Singh’s government would have to put off the U.S. deal and face early elections if the confidence vote is defeated. His five-year tenure ends in May next year.

The governing Congress party says it has secured alternative parliamentary support from new allies after the communist parties, which normally vote with the government, said they would not back the nuclear deal.

The communists say the deal would undermine India’s weapons program and give Washington too much influence over Indian foreign policy. The government denies the charge.

If ratified, the agreement would reverse three decades of U.S. policy by allowing the sale of atomic fuel and technology to India, which has not signed international nonproliferation accords but has tested nuclear weapons. India, in exchange, would open its civilian reactors to international inspections.

The nuclear agreement also must be approved by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog organization, and the Nuclear Suppliers Group of countries that export nuclear material before the U.S. Congress can approve it.