NEW YORK, June 5: The affluent Indian-Americans living in the United States are flexing their muscles on Capitol Hill to support the US-India nuclear deal spending heavily on lobbying, campaign contributions and public relations to persuade Congress to approve the deal.

In an exclusive report the New York Times citing officials in Washington and New Delhi have called the agreement historic, a centrepiece of American-Indian relations.

However, the newspaper asserts that to many Indian-Americans, the plan is something more personal: a confirmation of India’s emergence as a global power.

And they see the increasingly contentious battle in Congress as a unique opportunity to demonstrate their budding political influence in their adopted homeland.

In recent months, Indian-Americans, as well as the Indian government in some cases, have invested heavily in proven political tools that have helped previous immigrant groups break into American politics — hiring lobbyists, organising fund-raisers and blanketing Capitol Hill with briefings, phone calls and petitions, the Times said.

“This is the chance to show that the community has matured and can translate that into political effectiveness,” Sanjay Puri, chairman of the US-India Political Action Committee, or Usinpac, one of several Indian-American political groups that are working on the issue, told the newspaper.

Although Usinpac is not as powerful as the American Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC) which holds sway over the US lawmakers, the Indian-American lobby is doing its best to acquire similar clout.

Much of the lobbying, the Times says, has focused on lawmakers from the New York metropolitan region, home to the highest concentration of Indian-Americans in the country.

Mr Puri’s group, for instance, is organising a fund-raiser this month for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose support is viewed by Indian-American leaders as crucial to winning broader Democratic backing for the plan, Indian-American activists said.