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Journalism of Courage
Clearly more vocal than the CPM about exercising restraint in the Left’s public dealings with the UPA, the CPI is now taking decisions which suggest that it is also relatively more open to the idea of compromise and negotiations, even on economic issues.
Briefing the media today at the end of the two day-deliberations of the party’s Central Secretariat, the CPI highlighted several issues but devoted only five lines of a three-page statement to the contentious subjects of raising FDI caps and lowering of EPF rates.
And not just that, the CPI had no protest programme to announce to underscore its economic demands.
Contrast that with the scenario last Sunday when at the end of its Central Committee, the CPM too toned down its criticism of the UPA’s economic policies but chose the path of a weeklong countrywide agitation to be launched on August 25.
Even the CPI’s trade union wing, the AITUC, has sounded far less critical than the CITU leadership in recent weeks.
And CPI general secretary, A B Bardhan today said at post-Secretariat Press conference that by being in the UPA, ‘‘it is our hope we might be able to influence and modify decisions which would finally be in the interests of the people’’.
But sounding quite realistic, Bardhan admitted: ‘‘It is not our illusory hope that every point we raise will be concurred with.’’ The same note came through when Bardhan chided the media for ‘‘overplaying the differences and contradictions within the Left by repeatedly highlighting West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee seeking FDI openly.’’
Bardhan said, ‘‘We are not opposed to FDI in general. We feel that in certain sectors additional FDI would do more harm than good.’’ He repeated the logic of why the Left was opposed to increase in FDI caps in telecom, insurance and airports sectors.
In discussions among Left partners, Bardhan has already been insisting on sending the ‘‘right signals’’. He had asked fellow Left leaders to reconsider if the open bickerings with UPA and the Congress was really going down well with the ordinary people.
At the coordination meeting of the Left parties last week, Bardhan said in the presence of CPM general secretary, Harkishen Singh Surjeet, that CITU leader, M K Pandhe, would have to be requested to pipe down. A responsible leader who knows Parliamentary practices cannot say that his party would table cut motions, Bardhan argued. Pandhe should be aware that a defeat in a vote on cut motions would bring the government down, he pointed out. It is true that Bardhan had angrily reacted to the Sensex taking a tumble immediately after the election results came out. But then among the four Left parties, it was only the CPI which was agreeable to the idea of joining the government. It left the decision to Big Brother CPM and stood by the latter’s decision to extend support from outside.
