Prakash Karat, the leader of the Petty Bourgeois Party of India-Marxist, (PBP-M), growled again on Thursday.
He said in Palakkad, Karala, that the Left would vote against the Banking Act Amendment Bill and the Pension Bill.
Why? Because Karat felt that the amendments if passed would allow foreign banks to buy private Indian banks.
The Pension Bill, he said, would result in pension funds ending up betting on the stock market. The implication was that although they may earn higher returns, the risks were not worth it.
Then he came to the thing that frightens the Left most. "To pass the Bills, the United Progressive Alliance may have to seek the support of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which will have serious consequences."
What serious consequences? Will the Left withdraw support to the UPA government? The chances of that happening, we all know, are nil.
If that impossibility is conceded, there cannot be a better time for the Congress to expose Karat's bluff. It should at least seek - even if it is not able to obtain - the BJP's support for one Bill or both.
Indeed, it is almost certain that the BJP will agree to support both because it makes both economic and political sense. The latter is because it will divide the UPA badly and annoy the Left to a point of hysteria.
The question is whether the Congress will take this route. To the extent that it differs from the BJP only in that it wants the Muslims on its side while the BJP does not, it has little to lose.
After Rajiv's Shilanyas of 1989 and the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992, it has lost the Muslim vote in the North for at least a generation. That means till 2020. So why worry?
Yet, somehow, I do not think the Congress will ask the BJP for help.
Under the current management, it will prefer to forget that the BJP had extended similar support to the Narasimha Rao government - by walking out when crucial Bills came up for the vote. My fear is that for that reason alone - the fact that the BJP helped Narasimha Rao - the current management will not ask the BJP.
But that should not stop it from offering to help. In the name of constructive and issue-based support it can put the Congress in a spot. Will the Congress say: "We will defeat our own bills if they require the BJP's support?"
So if the leaders of the PBP (M) have any sense, they will do what the BJP used to do: walk out. That will register their opposition and yet prevent the Bills from being passed with BJP support.
But even that cannot happen until the elections in West Bengal and Kerala are won in February. So we are stuck between two types of intransigence: the Congress management's intransigence and the Left's intransigence.
The latter is said to be ideological but is largely driven by electoral compulsions. The former is just personal, not business.
That said, I would still not rule out the possibility of the Congress asking for BJP support. This is because in the last few months Congress President Sonia Gandhi has done all the right things.
I used to be appalled at the thought of her leading the country. But now I must say I was wrong. She has turned out to be very good.
Whether it is Volcker and Natwar Singh, or allowing the Election Commission to run the Bihar election properly, or Thursday's directive from the prime minister about the Right to Information Act, Sonia Gandhi has risen above the pettiness we have all become accustomed to from politicians and civil servants.
And not just the right thing, she has done the clever thing as well.
With the Bihar election having been run so well by the Election Commission, the election in West Bengal too can be supervised by it in the same no-nonsense way. That could reduce the number of seats the PBP (M) wins.
This puts it in a difficult situation and therefore provides the Congress with a bargaining chip. But if, say, K J Rao or someone like him is not sent to West Bengal next February we will know that a deal has been struck.
Lalu Prasad's defeat too should embolden the Congress. He has nowhere to go. And the BJP is in turmoil. In any case it agrees with the Congress on major economic reforms. The rest do not matter in the sense that they will go with the winning side as long as their narrow local interests are not threatened.
In short, after being a junior partner, the Congress has suddenly become the senior one. It is now in a position to set the agenda aggressively, rather than hesitantly and apologetically.
The new-found confidence and strength should be put to good use. India has not stood on such a platform for a long time.
The window of opportunity will last till mid-2007. It should not be lost.
