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Congress-Left relations:an uneasy year ahead |
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B.I. Saini
With the Congress backtracking on the nuclear issue,the immediate danger of the Left withdrawing support to the United Progressive Alliance, UPA, government may be over, but there is no shutting one's eyes to the fact that both the Congress and the Left would be keeping an hawk's eye on each other's political moves. Despite Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's earlier statements that the nuclear deal with the United States was non-negotiable, coalitional compulsions have now forced the Congress to admit that the deal could not go through if the CPI(M) and other Left parties withdraw support to the government on the issue. As the pointsperson of the UPA government on the nuclear deal, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee conceded earlier this month, no country would enter into a strategic deal with a government, which had lost majority support in Parliament. The Prime Minister reaffirmed the government's revised thinking on the deal when he said last week that there was no deadline for concluding the deal with the United States. While returning from his China visit, he said that the domestic political arithmatic in pursuing the nuclear initiative could not be wished away.
The CPI(M), the major force in the Left, on its part, has been very clear on its stand, that it would accept the nuclear deal with the United States under no circumstances. The party says that it is not simply a nuclear deal but is part of the American stategy to bring India within its sphere of influence. The CPI(M) has also been saying time and again that the United States is using India to 'encircle' China.
But the UPA government dropping or going slow on the nuclear deal is not going to smmothen all the wrinkles in the Congress-Left relations. The Left has a lot of problems with the government's economic policies, and as recent statements by CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat show, is looking for a third, non-BJP, non-Congress alternative. The move is significant as the constituents of the United National Progressive Alliance, UNPA, led by Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party have all along been seeking Left support for a
new third front against the Congress and the BJP. The CPI(M) had till now been reluctant to join such a front and wanted it to evolve from a common struggle
on issues concerning the poor.
The CPI(M) congress taking place in Coimbatore from March 29 to April 2 is expected to come out with a clear statement of the party's approach to a third
alternative, and going by Prakash Karat's recent speeches, it may not bring good cheer to the Congress.
With Lok Sabha elections just 15 months away, the Congress has no time left to tackle the challenges at hand, fending off a resurgent BJP led by seasoned
campaigner Lal Krishan Advani, dealing with restive UPA allies and the Left determined to oppose what it calls the government and the ruling combine's
retrogressive economic and foreign policies. The Congress, as the driving force of the ruling coalition, will have to come out with some out of the
box ideas if it is to retain power at the Centre.
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