Uf Divided Over Coordination Committee

There are basic differences of opinion within the United Front over the proposed coordination committee between the Congress and the Front and one-to-one interaction between the Prime Minister and the Congress president.

While the Left parties insist that there is no question of coordinating with the Congress at the political level, some other Front constituents say that it is both at the political and the government level.

Left leaders point out that, of the three proposals from the Congress, the United Front steering committee had accepted one, a coordination committee at the parliamentary level.

The others were rejected. The committee will have Prime Minister and few other key ministers from the government and some Congressmen, they argue.

Chary of giving up their anti-Congress politics, CPI(M) general secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet and CPI general secretary AB Bardhan argue that since the UF and the Congress are two different political groups, there is no question of having a coordination committee between them.

They say that regular ineteraction between the Prime Minister and the Congress president has no institutional status and hence cannot be understood as the one between the Congress and the United Front.

Since the Congress was the single largest supporting party of the UF government, it was necessary that the Congress was regularly consulted on policy issues and the proposed committee would serve the purpose, Surjeet said.

Parties like the Janata Dal and the Samajwadi Party, however, seem more willing to build bridges to the Congress, not only within Parliament but also in grassroots politics. Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav told the Lok Sabha on Tuesday that he had given up anti-Congressism.

Janata Dal working president Sharad Yadav said yesterday that through the coordination committee, problems at the parliamentary level would be sorted out and political dialogue between the United Front and the Congress would be maintained through interactions between the Prime Minister and Congress president.

The Left is more than uneasy at this trend. CPI secretary D Raja says the Prime Minister will head the committee as head of the government and he will not represent the Front. We have a different person as the leader of the Front.

Some UF leaders want former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda to be removed as the chairman of the Front. They say that, since Gowdas relations with Congress president Sitaram Kesri is not very coordial, keeping Gowda at the helm will only sour relations between the Congress and the UF.

The coordination committee would have no veto power and it could not dictate terms to the government, Bardhan said, adding that it would be a mechanism which would facilitate more interaction between the Congress and the government.