Buddha comes to Manmohan's rescue

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh may often find himself at odds with the competing interests of his many coalition partners, but he seems to have found a friend in West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya.

With talks on forming a new kind of co-ordination mechanism between the UPA government and its Left allies gaining ground, an interesting equation seems to have formed between Singh and Bhattacharya.

According to top sources in the Left, when the PM visited West Bengal this month he had an important request to make to Bhattacharya. CPM leader Brinda Karat had suggested an amendment to the tribal land rights Bill which was unacceptable to the UPA.

She had reportedly suggested that even Scheduled Castes living in forested areas be given land rights in consonance with the tribals. This was unacceptable to the Congress and the government which felt that the it might lead to new social conflicts in the north-east and other parts of the country where caste Hindus, whether upper or scheduled, were considered part of an exploitative system.

Both Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh spoke to Bhattacharya and Sitaram Yechury on the matter. "The matter was resolved only when the PM and Bhattacharya spoke to each other. Karat agreed to withdraw the amendment," said a top Left source.

Government sources confirm that this is not the first time that Bhattacharya has come to the PM's rescue. When the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act was being thrashed out, Bhattacharya was again asked to speak to Brinda Karat. Karat had been pressing for reserving one-thirds of the jobs available under the Act for women.

This would have had an adverse impact on the programme, considering the kind of work that was supposed to be carried out under the programme.

"Even otherwise, Bhattacharya has written to the PM earlier on many other issues and had also asked the Left to tone down its opposition to the petrol price hike," said a top government official.

"It can be clearly seen that although Singh is not comfortable with the Left leaders at the Centre, his rapport with Budhha is very good. Likewise Sitaram Yechury is a favourite of Sonia Gandhi's," said the official. The question is where does that leave Prakash Karat.