Cong to talk Budget with Left

PM, FM to explain fine print of the Budget to smaller parties in the UPA

A day after the Budget is announced, the Congress party will meet the constituents of the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) in an attempt to soothe the Left parties' post-Budget blues and cement the United Progressive Alliance alliance after poll results in Bihar and Jharkhand are announced.

The meeting, sources said, might have been called after the smaller constituents of the alliance complained to Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) Prithvi Raj Chauhan that they were not being treated on a par with the Left parties, which they claimed, were being consulted on a regular basis.

According to Left sources, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram will explain to the smaller parties the rationale behind measures announced in the Budget.

However, the government's anxiety to offer explanations to the Left parties seems to stem from a possibility that the Communist Party of India (Marxist) might be pulling out of the "outside support" arrangement with the government and offering issue-based support instead.

Such talk has also been fuelled by rumours that the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) might have already decided to pull out of the alliance.

The other Left constituent, the All-India Forward Bloc (AIFB), has openly expressed its resentment towards the government for being anti-poor in its economic reform agenda.

The Congress might also have a difficult situation on hand with the Dravida Munnetra Kazagham (DMK) demanding action against Minister of State for Commerce and Industry EVKS Elangovan for his "personal and intemperate" attack on party president M Karunanidhi.

Asked what action the party demanded against the minister, Karunanidhi said in Chennai today, "It is left to the Congress high command (to decide)." Karunanidhi had demanded an apology from Elangovan earlier for making disparaging remarks against him.

Since then, the DMK Chief has been in touch with the Prime Minister and Congress President Sonia Gandhi over the issue and the both are said to have apologised to the veteran leader on Elangovan's behalf.

Elangovan himself now claims that he made no such comments in the first place and has apologised a number of times already.

With the Rashtriya Janata Dal ( RJD), the Congress might be on a sticky wicket. This is because the RJD holds the Congress solely responsible for its indifferent performance in the Assembly polls.

RJD circles now see the Congress as instrumental in taking away the majority in the Bihar Assembly from them. In Jharkhand, the BJP's win might have been helped largely by the splintering of the UPA alliance in the state.

The meeting could be an effort towards shutting the stable doors after the horses have bolted.