Kesri's move queers pitch for UF
Rajesh Ramachandran in New Delhi
Sitaram Kesri's sudden move to resign as Congress president has wider
political ramifications.
Communist Party of India-Marxist general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav have been conducting hectic parleys with Congress leader and former defence
minister Sharad Pawar to establish an alternative government at the Centre.
Though Left Front constituents like the Forward Bloc and the Revolutionary Socialist Party strongly protested Surjeet's moves, the CPI-M veteran has been trying to install an anti-BJP government at the Centre.
With Kesri's resignation and Sonia's proposed entry at the helm of the Congress, Left leaders are reluctant to hazard a guess how the political permutations and combinations will work out to form an anti-BJP government at the Centre.
Though Surjeet was strongly criticised within his party and even at the United
Front core committee meeting on Friday, he argued that if he had not issued a statement that the UF would support a Congress-led government, the Congress would have split by now.
It was only the glimmer of winning back the reins of power, he added, that saved the day for the Congress.
When Telugu Desam Party chief N Chandrababu Naidu reminded Surjeet that but for his jumping the gun, some arrangement with the Congress would have been possible, the CPI-M leader claimed his intention was also to keep the minority votes intact.
Naidu, at the behest of former prime minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh, mooted the
idea of a UF-led government supported by the Congress. But Mulayam Singh is averse to this idea; he says he will no longer serve under another prime minister from the Front.
It is in this context that Pawar's election as Congress Parliamentary Party leader assumed importance. If Pawar is projected as the prime ministerial candidate, Surjeet and Mulayam Singh feel, Naidu may be persuaded to back the arrangement. The bonus for Naidu: Muslim votes in the 1999 assembly
election.
Pawar, sources claimed, had also begun negotiations with AIADMK leader J Jayalalitha and Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Bannerjee.
The CPI-M was convulsed by conflict during last week's Politbureau and
central committee meetings. The party's Young Turks and Kerala Chief Minister E K Nayanar opposed Surjeet's plan to install a Congress-led, UF-backed government. The naysayers were, however, isolated at the end. Nayanar and the CPI-M's trade union wing, the CITU, were taken aback when powerful Marxist leader and Politbureau member V S Achutanandan said he was not averse to having an adjustment of sorts with the Congress.
Kesri's resignation will certainly change the equation. For the Left and for Naidu, who may have to contend with a recharged Congress party at the hustings next year.
UNI adds: The UF core committee will meet in New
on Tuesday amid speculations that it might crack up over Front
convener Chandrababu Naidu's insistence on neutrality,
facilitating the passage of the confidence vote by the BJP.
Barring Naidu's TDP, most of the UF constituents have indicated their opposition to the installation of a BJP government, saying they will work at defeating the
confidence motion.
According to Front sources, the UF's unity depends on
Naidu's crucial announcement of adopting a posture of equidistance
from both the BJP and the Congress.
Meanwhile, Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Laloo Prasad
Yadav says Kesri's decision will not deter him from campaigning for the installation of a non-BJP government at the Centre.
Yadav, who was elected RJD parliamentary party leader on Monday, said
he will strive to prevent the BJP from coming to power.
If the Congress does not come forward to form a government, he said
the UF should take the initiative of installing a secular government with Congress help.
Elections '98
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