Left plays inside-outside in UPA's slide show

NEW DELHI: A courtship session lasting seven hours at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's residence on Wednesday failed to soften the Left and bridge the block's growing rift with the UPA leadership.

With senior ministers lining up one after the other to make a presentation of their one-year performance, the Left leaders could, at least, feel the “sincerity” of all the overtures from every UPA senior functionary including chairperson Sonia Gandhi.

But in the evening, the six Left leaders led by CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat refused to be signatories to a statement commending the day's review of the achievements of the UPA dispensation.

The Left made it clear that this was “not our government”, that “we are supporting from outside”, that “we are on board only because secularism was under threat” and that “we shall continue to support this government but we are not in agreement with its economic policies”.

The last para of the unsigned statement said, “The UPA partners and the Left parties reaffirmed their resolve to confront and combat communal forces and strengthen the secular pillars of the Indian state.”

This was one of the rare occasions when no joint statement was read out at the end of a UPA-Left meeting. Earlier, after every such UPA-Left meeting, Finance Minister P Chidambaram and senior CPI(M) politburo member Sitaram Yechury stepped out to brief the media jointly.

That bonhomie was missing on Wednesday. The Left leaders were whisked away in separate cars. Karat refused to step out and talk to waiting reporters. Even CPI general secretary A B Bardhan refused to oblige the press corps. Among those who shunned the newsmen were the usually media-savvy RSP's Abani Roy and Forward Bloc's Debabrata Biswas.

Karat later told reporters, “It was their presentation, their outlining of what they had done in a period of one year.” Even Abani Roy said, “It had nothing to do with us and our views. The briefing was theirs. All their ministers lined up one by one to describe in detail what each one of them had done over a year. We could put in very little of our views.”

It appeared that the Left felt a bit stranded because the UPA had conceived of the meeting in a very well-thought-out way. Every minister made strong presentations. In fact, the day's discussions had all the ingredients and even the shape of a peace-dialogue between two warring nations.

The Congress had conceived of such an architecture of the talks that the Left had little chance to have its say. Vital areas of difference_issues that are of core importance to the Left_had been carefully omitted. The talks had been sanitised long before they began.

No wonder then that Prime Minister Singh and Sonia Gandhi's kind and generous words for the Left only added to the intrigue. The Left leaders could hardly figure out how they could leave their imprint on the dialogue.

They did raise the issue of Gujarat, wanted a CBI inquiry into the six of the strongest cases pending before the Supreme Court but even that issue was partially hijacked by an equally forceful railway minister, Laloo Prasad Yadav and the Gujarat-based Congress leader, Ahmed Patel.

The Left interjected in discussions concerning the rural employment guarantee bill, the tribal forest rights bill and the broader issue of land reforms. But their comments lacked the punch because the UPA was not willing to give too much time for comments and questions.

One minister was followed by another minister in quick succession and evaluations moved from one subject to another. An ailing Yechury left midway. CPI's D Raja who had to take a flight could not stay the entire conversation.

Chidambaram made a power-point presentation with 37 slides and it came in the seventh hour of a long meeting making it too late for the Left leaders to utter their usual punchlines.

Said Abani Roy: “It was quite cordial. It was their affair today. We had nothing much to say. How can we say we are satisfied. What is good is that their ministers are trying to be accountable.”