Ending a decade-long friendly relationship inside Parliament, the Left and the Congress today engaged in a fierce war of words, accusing each other of causing a crisis for the government and forcing a trust motion.
While the CPI(M) tried to single out Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for “betraying” the alliance partners and the nation on the Indo-US nuclear deal, the Congress attempted to put the Left on a sticky ground by warning it not to vote along with the BJP.
External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee even bluntly asked the Left: “Do you feel this (the nuclear deal) is an issue the government should be brought down on?”
The PM had set the tone of this battle while moving the trust motion this morning. He made a distinction between the current CPI(M) leadership and the old guard — Jyoti Basu and Harkishen Singh Surjeet. “If we are here after a tenure of over four years, the credit for this should go to ...the wise and visionary leaderships of Basu and Surjeet,” he said.
Taking the cue from there, Mukherjee hit the CPI(M) where it hurt most — voting along with the BJP against the government. Mukherjee specially chose Hannan Mollah, a Muslim member of the CPI(M), to drive his point home.
Referring to Mollah’s past remarks that what can be done if the BJP is the co-passenger in the train, Mukherjee quipped, “I will ask you (the Left) to wait till the next station comes, get down and take another train. You will reach the same destination. But don’t forget 1977. Also, don’t forget 1988 when you joined hands with the BJP and V P Singh because after 1988, 2002 came when Babri Masjid was demolished.”