Although it snapped ties with Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) on a bitter note in July, opinion in the CPI(M), the largest of the four Left parties in Parliament, is veering round to supporting the Congress rather than helping Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati become prime minister after the next elections.
But learning its lessons from the UPA experience, the four Left parties, which have 59 seats in Parliament, are likely to lend “issue-based support” to the next Congress-led government (if it is near forming one).
The contingency, of course, depends on the final tally of various parties in the Lok Sabha polls scheduled early next year.
In the current Lok Sabha, the UPA has 237 seats of which the Congress accounts for 152. The BSP has 17
Top sources in the CPI(M), with 42 seats in the current Lok Sabha, also told Business Standard that the Left may not object if Congress reappoints Manmohan Singh as its prime ministerial candidate. “How can we dictate to other parties their choice of leader? But whoever he is, he will have to strictly follow a list of issues to earn our support,” said a prominent party central committee member.
The Left feels that although the Common Minimum Programme (CMP) was formed as the guiding principles of the UPA, the Manmohan Singh government’s Indo-US nuclear deal, the issue that precipitated a trust vote in July which the the UPA won, contradicted the CMP agenda of “strengthening an independent foreign policy.” The Congress maintained that this provisions didn’t bar better relations with the US. This time, the Left wants to leave no scope for “foul play” by the Congress, relations with which represent a “trust deficit” for the Left.
Despite recent events, the Left feels the Congress is a better choice than Mayawati because of her caste politics. “Mayawati wants other parties to support her candidature for prime minister but won’t share seats. How is this possible?” said another CPI(M) central committee member after the CPI(M)’s efforts for seat adjustments with Mayawati in UP and other states failed. There will be no pre-poll alliance with Lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) either.
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Keeping these possibilities in mind, the CPI(M) plans to finalise its pre-poll alliances at the politburo meet scheduled in Delhi on November 29 and 30. While it has clinched a deal with Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and Telengana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) for seat adjustment in Andhra Pradesh, the party is struggling to find a suitable partner in Tamil Nadu.
“We have to co-ordinate our stand and take a common approach with the CPI,” CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat said. The Communist Party of India (CPI) is the second-largest of the Left parties.
According to sources, CPI(M)’s central leadership and its Tamil Nadu state unit have a different viewpoint about alliance in the state. The state unit prefers a tie-up with Jayalalitha’s Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (ADMK) as she is expected to sweep the next election. But the central leaders are apprehensive that after the -elections, she might return to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) fold.
In Bihar, the Left is expected to go alone without their old friend Lalu Prasad. Prasad can’t leave the UPA and the Left can’t take a stake in any pre-poll alliance with the Congress. The state unit of CPI(M) also has vehemently opposed any alliance with Prasad’s team in the last central committee meeting where alliances were discussed. In the last elections, the CPI aligned with Ramvilas Paswan while CPI(M) stayed with Prasad.
The party has to maintain an anti-Congress stand during the polls as it will be their primary opponent in the three Left-ruled states of Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura. But Karat had recently indicated that he is open about doing business with the Congress again. At a seminar in the capital in September, Karat had said, “You can’t write off the Congress along with the BJP. If you do, there is not much hope left for us.”
His statement was noted by an alert Congress which has suspended for the time being, negotiations with Mamata Banerjee's Trinamul Congress, the Left’s arch enemy in West Bengal.