A blunder revisited?

It will always be the Left’s burden that any deliberations on government formation at the Centre will be adjudged against the CPM’s 1996 decision to stay out of the United Front ministry. Later recalling that development, Jyoti Basu termed it a “historic blunder”. In that isolationist stance, he saw a lost opportunity to imbue the third front experiment with coherence and stability. Will the Left’s determination this time around to remain out of a Congress-led cabinet, then, be a source of regret or vindication for them? It depends on the role they seek in setting the coalition’s agenda.

The communists have two concerns about joining a rainbow coalition in New Delhi. One, they would like to preserve ideological purity. Cohabiting with the Congress and sundry regional parties would logically demand negotiation and compromise on a host of issues — from disinvestment to foreign relations, from labour reforms to power subsidy. Two, the Left parties fear that by committing themselves unambiguously to the principle of collective responsibility in a council of ministers, they would completely vacate the opposition space for the NDA. It is believed that discomfort over participation in the Central government was voiced most vehemently by leaders from Kerala and West Bengal, where the Left Front’s direct political adversary is the Congress. Yet in this decision borne of political expediency also lie clues about the Left’s inability to come to terms with hard political realities and responsibilities.

Providing outside support to a minority government is every political party’s inalienable right in a parliamentary system. Outside support, however, means a remove from actual governance. For the sake of political stability, it demands clarity in the terms for support. Constituents of the Left Front, like the CPI, have already presented a laundry list of issues they want included in a common minimum programme. A CMP by its very nature is a pledge by a ruling government, it is an undertaking of all that the government promises to work for. By remaining out of government, the Left’s role in a CMP could thus be cause for confusion — for they would not be in a position to implement what they’d have committed themselves to achieving. Coalitions are exercises in negotiation, they imply collective responsibility for each other’s acts of omission or commission. The Left parties must know that they would threaten the new government’s stability if they insist on the right to both oppose and dictate policy.