New Delhi, July 8: From outside supporters to a force that came in the way of virtually anything and everything that the Government attempted to do, the four Left parties played the role of Opposition in the last 50 months, giving no leg room whatsoever to the UPA.

As the uneasy and at times acrimonious UPA-Left marriage finally ended, The Indian Express scanned through the political statements issued in the last four years by the CPM to find out that majority of them were “opposing”, “criticising” and “advising” the Government on one issue or the other.

The comrades, who enjoyed authority without being in power, began showing the red flag right from the word go and criticised the Government at every stage.

Whether it was opening up of telecom, insurance, civil aviation, agriculture and retail sectors to FDI, divesting shares of public sector units, pension Bill, ordnance to amend Patents Act, foreign policy issues or the Special Economic Zones, they slammed each and every step.

So much so that when the UPA launched its ambitious National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the Left was engaged in a war of attrition with it over India’s stance at the IAEA over Iran’s nuclear programme and accusing the Government of succumbing to US pressures.

But the parties have been by and large silent on health and education issues except for the on-and-off demands for more budgetary allocation for these sectors.

Out of the 300-odd political statements that the CPM issued in the last 50 months, their opposition and reservations over the Indo-US nuclear deal figured in as many as 50 of them, including those released after the Central Committee and Politburo meetings.

Majority of the other statements advised the Government to either toe their line or opposed key policy issues. Most of them ended with a similar line — the Left will launch an agitation and mobilise public support against the policies of the UPA Government.

Trouble began in the first year itself when the Left parties criticised “inclusion of World Bank officials in Planning Commission”, alluding to the appointment of Montek Singh Ahluwalia as Deputy Chairman, in September 2004.

They followed it up by opposing Government plans to disinvest shares of public sector navaratnas and miniratnas and questioning scrapping of Press Note 18 in October. In December, they disapproved the ordnance route to amend the Patents Act.

They saw red in the decision to allow private domestic airlines to operate on international routes and strongly opposed the hike in FDI cap in telecom from 49 per cent to 74 per cent.

The first major showdown came in May, 2005 when the Communists decided to stop attending the UPA-Left coordination committee meetings in protest against the Cabinet decision to offload 10 per cent of Government’s equity in BHEL.

The Government had to blink after days of standoff and stopped the BHEL divestment. The Left had drawn the first blood and they then started advising Government on economic issues.

A proposal on reduced impact of price rise read: suspend road cess increase, forego increased customs and excise Duty, make additional crude cess available for stabilisation fund, suspend duty free benefit for exports and review and withdraw sales tax concessions to private refineries.

They opposed privatisation of Delhi and Mumbai airports and mounted pressure on the Government to expedite the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project.

They soon started dictating terms on key foreign policy and security related issues as well — from asking the Government not to resume military supplies to Nepal under the monarchy to desist from buying F-16 fighters. They played the role of advisor while being the stumbling block.

The Left also asked the Government not to engage in military ties with Israel.

India’s vote against Iran at the IAEA on Tehran’s nuclear issue was another flashpoint. The Left openly declared that the Manmohan Singh government had surrendered to US pressure. The deepening Indo-US defence ties was always a matter of contention and it finally ended in the severing of UPA-Left ties.

Their pathological dislike for the US began threatening the UPA Government in 2005, barely a year after it assumed office, when they opposed any strategic ties with America.

The India-US Defence Framework agreement was the first irritant.

Then came the big nuclear showdown. After asking the Government to reveal details of the Indo-US civil nuclear deal, they graduated to opposing the 123 agreement once the text was released by the Government in August 2007.

The Communists asked the Government not to operationalise the deal, but later allowed conditional negotiations on the safeguards agreement with the IAEA. But the writing was on the wall that the allies will not allow the Government to proceed further and will withdraw support if it went ahead.