Now that the contentious Indo-US civil nuclear agreement is all but wrapped up and a Parliament session is barely two weeks away, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will have to take two crucial decisions: One on the question of how best to accommodate the Samajwadi Party (SP), which helped his government when it most needed it and whether or not to react to signals from the CPI(M) that it was ready to work with the Congress-led UPA, two months after it took back support to it.
Whether the SP will join the government or continue to support it from outside remains an open question. Top Congress leaders say an offer of ministerships to the SP is still on the table. What it requires is a Cabinet reshuffle. When that will happen is the prerogative of the prime minister.
The assessment that the Left’s dream of forging a secular front can’t work at the national level without the Congress came from none other than CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat last week.
He had been busy in cobbling together different anti-BJP formations. As none of them have materialised so far and the unity in the third front is depleting fast as usual, Karat admitted “there is not much hope” for the Left without the Congress.
Speaking at a discussion organised by the Center for Policy Analysis on communal violence, Karat contradicted a speaker who lumped together the BJP and the Congress and said “we must maintain a distinction between the likes of the RSS, the VHP and the BJP and secular parties like the Congress. You can’t write off the Congress along with the BJP. If you do (write off), there is not much hope left for us.”
While he didn’t mince words in criticising the government again for its stand on fighting communalism, Karat conceded the pan-Indian presence of the Congress vis-a-vis other secular parties.
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“The Congress often fails, often retreats in its challenge against the communal forces, but you have to understand the large base of the Congress.”
After it withdrew support to the government in July, the Left launched renewed attacks on the Congress and especially targeted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Relations between the Left and Singh turned so sour that the two sides held no direct interaction after the trust vote.
But when some people at the discussion suggested that a representation should be made to the central government on the recent communal violence in the Orissa and Karnataka, Karat promptly agreed to be a part of it and to meet the prime minister.
“As elections draw close, we will have to put on hold our third alternative and go with some parties. We will look for allies. In the coming period, our efforts would be directed towards finding alliances,” Karat said today.