United Front leaders yesterday decided to face the vote of confidence in Parliament and said that it was up to the Congress to decide whether it wanted to bring down a secular government with the help of the BJP.
Let us see how they join hands with the same force against which they had decided to support us last year, CPI(M) general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet told newsmen yesterday.
UF leaders exuded confidence and said that they were ready to face the mid-term polls, in case their government fell today. Front convenor N Chandrababu Naidu reiterated that the Front was united and it would continue to be united even after the vote of confidence.
After two rounds of formal talks failed yesterday, the standing and the steering committees of the Front and endorsed the decision of the UF negotiating team consisting of Surjeet, Naidu, Union defence minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, Janata Dal president Laloo Prasad Yadav and Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah.
The UF negotiating team maintained that there was no question of sharing power with the Congress or a change of leadership.
Surjeet gave a detailed account of the two-days of formal discussions between the UF and Congress leaders and said that the Front ruled out the demand of change of leadership.
How can any other party dictate who our leader should be? Surjeet said, adding that this went against basic political reason.
About the first days formal talks, Surjeet said the Congress leaders kept on repeating that, since the Congress had supported the UF government for the past ten months it was now UFs turn to reciprocate.
UF negotiators summarily rejected the proposal, saying this will not only create confusion, but it will shake the peoples faith in the secular polity, Surjeet said.
The formal talks resumed again yesterday with a slight change in UFs negotiating team. Laloo Prasad Yadav replaced party working president Sharad Yadav. One UF leader said that this was done to make the wavering Laloo commit himself publicly to the Front.
Yesterdays negotiation also failed to yield results, as the Congress leaders once again began with the same theme: the UF should support the Congress claim to form the government, Surjeet said. We told them. Why are you repeating the same demand when you had discarded this three days back?.
Towards the end, Congress leader AK Anthony said that sometimes a change of leader solved the problem and he alluded to experiences from Kerala where K Karunakarans replacement as the Chief Minister helped solve the internal problems in the Congress.
UF negotiating team questioned the analogy, saying Keralas example related to the affairs in the Congress and change in leadership was done at the behest of partys high command. But UF is a different experiment and we will not change our leader because of pressure from another party, one of the UF leaders said.
Finally, Sharad Pawar asked what is the rock bottom of UFs proposal? UF leaders said the Congress should issue a list of declarations pointing out loopholes in the government and they would respond positively. They wanted the Congress to give a list of grievances which would be taken care of.
They also suggested that there could be a coordination committee with the Congress which would meet very frequently and the Congress would have a say in all the major government decisions. You can put us on probation if you want. If we do not live up to the expectation you can consider of withdrawing support, of UF leader told the Congress team.
